I Walk the Line
by KPtwistepghost
Summary: The trio are entering their junior year but that doesn't mean things are settling down. Vlad's concocting a new plan that the trio has no idea about, the Ghosts are talking of Danny being the new Ghost King and things are heating up between Danny and Sam. It all draws down to how their everyday lives are lived. Love, adventure, darkness, power & high school. What could be more fun?
1. Complicted

**Better Summary:**

The trio are starting their junior year at Casper High. There will be new ghosts that Danny meets and will show up later in the story. There's word around the Ghost Zone that Danny might be the new Ghost King and Danny isn't sure how he feels about this. Vlad is being intensely quiet but the trio are taking a nice break from him, though they are still on guard. Vlad's plan's are always long and intricate and will take time to unravel them. Dani may be making an appearance and PP has not happened. DannyxSam is in the works but we're taking our time getting there. And the GIW have shown up in Amity Park again. Well, not only Amity Park but inside the school! This story will encounter Ghost Language as well.

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Hey guys! So I've been working on doing this DP story for over a year now. I think it's been a year and 8 months now. Anyway I've spent the last 14 months mapping out where I want this story to go. It's taken me a long time but I finally started piecing it all together. I've only got a little written but I decided it would be best to go ahead a post the first chapter.

 **Important for Reading this story!**

This story is slow going for a reason because it expands over a long period of time that has many intricate details. I've been planning this story for a long time and it will probably end up in three or four different parts all with about 75 – 100 chapters or so each seeing how it's taken me 11 chapters to only get this far. I have everything planned out; it's just the matter of writing the chapters. So if you are not ready for the long haul then I guess you shouldn't be reading my story? But I would love it if you did! By the way, season 3 has happened. PP is the only thing that _hasn't_ happened. PP was bad and this is my way of going around it because Vlad would never be this stupid and his plans are way more intricate and laid out then that stupid stuff he did in Phantom Planet.

*if anyone wants to view a map of the entire state of IL that I am using as a basis for where I'm putting Amity Park. City: Champaign IL. To STL it's only 2:45 mins, to Chicago its only 2:15 mins, to Indianapolis its only 2 hrs, to Springfield however its 1:30 mins. I really wanted it to be an hour (So that's what I'm having in my story). City size though will be about the size of Springfield, IL. (I'm rounding up to 120,000 :: it's really 117,006)

Also the image for the story is from evagudmund! Check out her art blog on tumblr! She's a great artist, I mean just look at that perfect picture of the trio! I will say again that it is NOT mine, but it IS evagudmund's.

 **Also i understand that this beginning chapter is slow and very basic but i promise that it will get better as you go! (12/10/15)**

 **Please give this story a chance! :)**

Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom

Author's note update: (12/10/15)

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 **I Walk the Line: Complicated**

 **Word count:** 5,190

 **9/14/15**

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 **August 20th, 2014**

 **Wednesday**

 **Casper High**

 **7:30 a.m.**

It was a Wednesday, a hot one at that, in August. Teens milled around on the ground in front of Casper Senior High School aka Casper High. It was the first day of school for the students of Amity Park, Illinois. Football players threw a football between the other on the grass, a group of girls talked about fashion trends for the fall and how they couldn't wait for the school year to start. Freshman walked around like lost puppies and some sophomores tried pushing it with the seniors. What many of the people on the main part of the front lawn missed was the group of three sitting off to the left side of the building by themselves. At the moment no one was bothering them. They survived in their peaceful bubble.

"I can't believe we're juniors." Tucker sighed from his position on his back where he rested next to his best friend Danny Fenton. The black haired teen had his head lying on their other best friend, Sam Manson's, left leg. She currently sat Indian style and on her right leg she held a sketch book that she was currently doodling in.

"Yeah, man." Danny sighed out, "I can't believe I passed enough to not have to retake sophomore year." He chuckled, but it was short lived on the halfa.

"Because, you had friends and others to _help_." Sam reminded him. Just because he wanted to do things himself didn't mean they didn't step in forcibly and take the reins for him.

Danny only sighed in response keeping his eyes closed. He hadn't gotten much sleep last night, but that was normal for him. But during the summer he could at least go to bed after he got in and no one would be forcing him to get up. Now he's got to be awake by the latest of 7:30 a.m. to get ready and make it to school with enough time to get things from his locker and be in class by 8 a.m. That wouldn't have been the best time before but now they didn't have to worry about walking.

For her 17th birthday Sam's grandma gave her a black Honda Accord hybrid 2015. It has excellent gas mileage which is what Sam wanted as well it is friendly to the environment, another thing she had to have. Danny specifically liked the sunroof because he could stick his head out of it and pretend he was in a limo. The first time him and Tucker did that however Sam was not pleased. But that was probably because Danny had almost knocked over her drink and not because they had stuck their heads out like imbeciles.

After a couple more minutes of silence and soaking up the sun, Sam began to put her sketchbook away. "We should probably go inside and get our schedules before the mass rush of people do."

Danny and Tucker groaned, but got up anyway stretching as they went before pulling on their bags. When Sam stood she now was at both of their shoulders. They each had their last growth spurts over the summer. Danny now standing closer to his father at 6'1, Tucker an inch below him and Sam shorter than both at 5'6.

Besides their height difference the boy's voices had finally reached their full deepness. They had of course changed when they were about fifteen, but they officially dropped a level over the summer. Tucker's was the first to come around and become steady. It wasn't too deep – not anywhere near a baritone, but definitely sweet. The first time Danny's voice cracked over the summer, Dan's deep, rich, baritone type voice came out. It overly freaked everyone out. Especially Danny. But when his father and even Vlad and the other adults mentioned that his voice changing again was okay and perfectly normal, he felt only slightly better. It took a while for the trio and Jazz to get used to the voice. But once they did, Sam couldn't believe how sexy it sounded on him. Not that she told anyone that.

The group headed inside, going towards the gym where they could get their schedules and what not. They already had their locker assignments for that year, but at that time when their schedules were normally ready, they were not. Mr. Lancer told them the board wanted to try adding a new mandatory class and the school was still working out the kinks in everyone's schedules.

After waiting in line they finally got their schedules and began looking over them together.

"So we have Homeroom and English all together. Then me and Sam share Algebra II, then we all have U.S. History together, then you guys have Bio together while I'm alone, then lunch, gym obviously we're together, me and Tuck share government. Wait, why aren't _you_ taking government?" Danny asked Sam.

"I took it last year, remember?" Sam rolled her eyes, "Plus, I really wanted to take the mythology class."

"Okay, and then… wait, what? We have to take ghost 101?"

"What does that mean?" Tucker questioned, "Who's going to teach it? It doesn't even list a name." They both looked to Danny.

"My parents said nothing. I have no idea. If they were going to teach the class, then my dad wouldn't have been able to keep it a secret."

"True." Sam sighed as they approached the boy's lockers. They were always close because of their last names, while Sam was all the way down the hall nowhere near them. "I guess we'll just have to wait till the end of the day."

They placed their things in their lockers, Sam sharing Danny and Tucker's. Then they were off to Homeroom. They always had the same homeroom since they were Freshman. It was the same old same old. Lancer called attendance and talked about his expectations for the year. Then after 20 minutes the bell rang and everyone went to their next class.

Everyone except Danny, Sam, Tucker, Dash, Paulina, Star, Kwan, Mikey, Nathan and their friend Melvin. Apparently they were going to have English class with Dash and the other A-Lister's; again.

During English it was a normal class of the 'populars' making fun of the non-populars and the kids in the grey area not saying anything about it. The same went for Mr. Lancer. Danny waited for ghosts to attack, but none showed their faces. Which he thought was odd. But he was thankful that no one had come because he really didn't want to ask to leave Mr. Lancer's class on the first day.

After English they departed their separate ways. Danny and Sam to their Algebra II class and Tucker to Pre-Calc. Danny knew he would have been in that class if ghosts didn't keep getting in his way. They met up again for U.S. History where they took notes constantly from power points. Danny was excited for his honors Bio class because it was so easy for him, though he was sad to be without his two best friends. But he still had people that he could talk to if he really needed the company, like Mikey, Melvin and a few others on the lower end of things. There were a few social middle kids in the class as well, which made him happy. However, there were a few popular people that he couldn't talk to such as Valerie and Alyssa – though both she and Alyssa stayed clear of one another. Alyssa opted to speak with her best friend Brett. Valerie kept close to Danny even though she was back in the lower popular crowd. It was slightly awkward for both of them but Danny was happy that they were still some semblance of friends.

Lunch was the usual. Danny was tripped by Dash and covered in his lunch. He went to the bathroom phasing food off and Tucker handing him the small bottle of shampoo from their lockers to wash out the smell and things from his hair. They forgot to put extra clothes in Sam's locker, but they were going to remember tomorrow.

Since it was hot outside, gym was held on the field. They had to run two laps around the track and then it was a game of 'touch' football, but with most of the juniors and seniors from the football team in their gym class it was the farthest thing from _touch_ football. Mrs. Testlaff turned a blind eye because she really just wanted them to do something physical.

Tucker and Danny went to government, while Sam went to Myth class. The boys were completely bored out of their minds as they took notes just as they did in their history class. Sam, on the other hand was having a blast. She loved mythology and she knew that this class would be a breeze for her. But soon those classes ended as well and they met up in the hallway where their ghost 101 class was going to be held.

"You ready for this?" Tucker questioned as he played a game on his PDA.

Danny took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I guess as I'll ever be. What about you guys?" He looked at his best friends.

"As long as it's not your parents, I think we'll be okay." Tucker shrugged. "I mean, anyone else isn't going to know all that much about ghosts."

Sam was still silent, now staring at the door in front of them. "I mean, Lancer said it's now a _requirement_ to take. So no matter what we're going to have to be here. But, I'm with Tuck on this. Let's just hope it's not your parents. But, who else could they get? It's not like Jazz would teach it, and Vlad is still Mayor so he's out. And he also really has no motive to teach, the only option could be…"

"Are you children a part of my ghost 101 class?" A voice asked from behind them.

They turned around to be confronted with a chocolate skinned man as tall as Danny. Black sunglasses adorned his face and a bright white suit stood out against the bleak school walls.

Sam immediately closed her mouth, the trio looking on with shock. Sam sometimes hated when she was right.

Danny was the one who broke the silence, "Uh, yeah. You're our teacher?" Sam still shuddered at how odd it was to hear the innocent tone in Danny's voice with how he sounded.

"Yes," The operative smiled a dazzling white smile, "Agent Z." He held out his hand. None of them reached foreword to shake it. The agent pulled it back tentatively, "Umm… anyway should we not be heading inside?" He gestured to the door where a few kids already sat.

The trio nodded, turning on their heels and walking inside the classroom. They chose seats in the back like they always did. Mikey, Nathan, Mackenzie, Alex and Star and Paulina were already seated in the room. Paulina sneering at them as they passed. Sam rolled her eyes ignoring the girls jab at her appearance.

Just before the bell rang a few seconds after the trio found their own seats, Dash, Kwan and two of their other football buddies came through the door. Followed by the popular girls Alyssa, Hayden and Rose and last but not least Valerie.

"Oh, crap." Danny whispered to them as the cocoa-skinned girl waved at them and took the seat at the front and center. "Why _our_ class?"

"Maybe she'll be able to take the view away from us?" Sam suggested, patting Danny's hand.

The bell rang and the Agent began the class, "Hello class, my name is Agent Z. And I will _not_ be accepting any other name then that. From my roster I see that everyone is a junior. Good, that means you probably will know one another. However, I do not." He chuckled. "So, how about we go around the room and introduce ourselves by saying our name and two things about yourself that you think I should know. I'll go first. Hello, my name is Agent Z. I have been part of the Guys in White for 11 years. I went to the University of Wisconsin to get my teaching degree back in the day."

Danny's head popped up when he mentioned the University of Wisconsin. His parents _and_ Vlad went there. This just made the Agent that more interesting. What was it about that University? He looked at Tucker and Sam who each shared his shocked look. Tucker took out a piece of paper as the class began to do as instructed.

 **We really need to do some checking on this guy**

He passed it to Danny, where Sam looked over to see what he wrote. They both wrote that they agreed, then Danny wrote down how he thought it odd about University of Wisconsin. Sam took the paper from him.

 _We should check and see what kind of paranormal science program they have. Because why else would the GIW want him? Surely not for his teaching abilities._

 **Yeah, cause you know Vlad would only go to get the best education. So Wisconsin has to have some certain Paranormal thing.**

Tucker was called to answer the student question, "Hi, I'm Tucker Foley. I'm a techno-geek and a ladies man." He winked at Mackenzie and Alex. They rolled their eyes, turning away to converse with each other and Danny and Sam laughed.

"And you young man?"

"I'm Danny Fenton. I…"

"Am a loser." Dash finished for him.

"Mr. Baxter is it?" Agent Z didn't wait for Dash to give an answer, "I will _not_ tolerate rude behavior in my class. This is a warning. Another outburst big or small and you will be staying in detention. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir." Dash shrunk back, glaring over at Danny, who smirked at the football player. Maybe this guy wouldn't be so bad after all.

"Go ahead Danny."

"Umm, I love astronomy and…I'm pretty good at video games." He shrugged. Others in the class sniggered. Sam sent a glare towards them.

"Your parents wouldn't happen to be Jack and Madeline Fenton, would they?"

Danny almost groaned aloud, but let his smile drop as the others openly snickered. "Yes."

The agent nodded, "Then you should know a lot about ghosts then?"

"I don't really talk to my parents about their work." He really didn't want there to be a chance he could connect him to Phantom. He just hoped that when he used the Reality Gauntlet that it still held its power over the agency.

"Well, that's a shame." he tsked, before turning to Sam.

"I'm Sam Manson, I like things that are dark and if you call me, Samantha, I'll kill you." Her voice was dark, though her face held a sickenly sweet smile.

"Noted." The agent nodded, his eyes filled with a bit of fear, before quickly moving onto the next student.

Danny and Tucker sniggered over the agent's reaction. "That was great." Danny commented, having seen first-hand what happens when someone calls her by her full name.

"I had to get my point across. I know what it says on the roster sheet no matter how much I want to change it." The trio laughed even though Sam was still reeling over her name on the roster.

The last kids finished up and Agent Z pulled down the projection screen and brought up his computer to show a view of slides. He handed out the syllabus and told them to get out their notebooks.

"To get a solid understanding of ghosts, it's best to understand what level each ghost is. This is where we will be starting." He clicked the button to change the slide where it showed plain black and white slides. "Ghosts are leveled from 1 to 10 on the spectral energy scale. They are measured on this scale by how much ectoplasm they have flowing through their bodies – if they have bodies, and how well they maintain their energy."

The trio looked between each other. They knew this was going to be an easy class. They pretended to take notes as everyone else scribbled in their notebooks, because they knew all of this information already.

"Level 1 ghosts are sentient manifestations and are completely harmless." A picture of a vapor that looked to be glowing green appeared on the screen. "Level 1's are the weakest forms for ghosts. Some ghosts start here, while others start much higher." Paulina's hand shot in the air. "Yes?"

"What level is Danny Phantom?" The trio rolled their eyes; they were wondering why it took so long for her to mention Phantom. "Is he a 10? He's so perfect and great looking; he has to be a 10." She looked up at the teacher expectantly. Danny's cheeks were slightly pink. Sam and Tucker snickered at him. They folded their hands and batted their eye lashes at Danny in imitation of Paulina. He slapped them on their shoulders; not that it stopped them.

"We believe that Phantom is a level 8 entity." That got the groups attention. The last time they had heard that Danny was a level 7. But that had been about a year ago.

"Why not a 10?" Paulina pouted. The other girls who loved Phantom joined in, wanting an explanation. Valerie scoffed at them and their shallowness for a pretty face.

"We'll get there and when I do it'll be explained." Agent Z said so harshly, that it shut everyone up. He smiled and turned back to the projection, "Now onto class two ghost."

A power point slid up to show an image of the octopuses that Danny sees from time to time with **Class Two** written above the picture. There was also a picture of a ghost that the group had never seen before. It was a vapor like image of a man who wore a white long-sleeved shirt, black pants and nice shoes. His whole form was a vapor green.

"These ghosts normally don't present a problem because they are usually unable to hold their form outside the ghost zone. They are very weak and if they are able to hold their form outside of the Zone then they are easily able to be captured because they cannot hold their form very long and usually melt. As a ghost fighter you don't need to use any weapons to capture them. The most likely type of class two is an astral projection. They are barely a step above a vapor. However some are more solid, but not by much."

He clicked to the next slide. A picture of a green and white ghost snake and wolf appeared on the board along with a humanoid shape that seemed to be dripping ectoplasm that the trio hadn't seen before.

"These are also easy to defeat and as a ghost fighter, you do not need to have any particular training to be able to capture them. Though, if you are inexperienced, do not approach them. Any ghost is still dangerous. These ghosts are usually humanoid, but they are not able to pass among humans without being shown as a ghost because they are usually leaking ectoplasm; however they are able to hold their forms much longer. The other forms of this level are animals and they typically do not leak ectoplasm at this stage until they are almost devoid of energy on Earth."

He clicked to the next slide where a picture of the box ghost and Sydney Poindexter were shown. Danny laughed because he honestly wasn't expecting there to be a picture.

"Now, level fours are ones you should run from." The trio had to place their hands over their mouths to keep from laughing aloud. The box ghost scary? Run from him? Ha! Danny could only shake his head, biting his thumb to keep his laughing under control. From where he sat he could see Valerie trying to reel in her laughter as well.

"If you are inexperienced do not even try to approach them. They are still able to absorb your energy and make you weak. Most of these level ghosts appear humanoid or in animal appearance. However the humanoid ghosts are able to better blend in with people on earth. That is until they lose too much energy. They however, are able to stay away from the Ghost Zone for a week before needing to go back and replenish. These ghosts have basic powers that ghosts are equipped with. These powers being intangibility, invisibility, flight, the power to overshadow objects – ghosts in level four and over are also able to overshadow people, and have the ghost ray. The ghost ray comes in different colors depending on the ghost and sometimes shaped differently.

"Like here with the box ghost. The box ghost is a weak entity however it can do all the basic ghost powers, however he has trouble overshadowing people, and his ghost rays are formed in shapes of light blue boxes."

And with that he was moving onto the next slide. A picture of the Lunch Lady appeared to the class. Danny let a chuckle though. He found it incredibly hilarious that the Lunch Lady ranked higher than her husband.

"If you are experienced in using ecto-weapons, you would be fine going up against this level. Otherwise, just as you would with level four, you get your butt out of there and let the professionals take care of the ghost. The level five ghosts do not attack unless provoked, like how the Lunch Lady here will not attack unless you offend her – which is actually very easy."

Danny and Tucker looked automatically at Sam who glared them down. They chuckled and turned back to the board. Danny got a kick in the leg, making Tucker silently laugh. Sam pointed at him, threatening to give him one later.

"They are pretty powerful and are usually humanoid figures however, they can be animal entities as well. Level five ghosts have basic powers and are strong enough to overshadow people and for a much longer time. These ghosts are the most average level ghosts. They also only attack when provoked. Also at this stage there are sometimes special non-basic powers that the ghosts possess. Such as the Lunch Lady's power over all things meat. The box ghost could be put into this category, however determining how weak he is places him into the level four category."

He clicked the button and the slide show changed. There were two pictures on this one. However, they were of the same ghost; Dora. One picture showed her as her regular ghost self. The other showed her in her blue dragon form with the amulet tied around her neck.

"The ghosts in the class six level are very powerful inside and outside of the Ghost Zone. These ghosts usually have a leading power besides the basic ones. They are very hard to defeat, but possible. You must have experience when handling a level six ghost and higher. They also are most likely to attack without being provoked. This ghost here is able to transform into a dragon. It is something quite powerful, though they are not listed at a higher level because she only has one different power and though she is powerful, can be easily detained. But if you do see one, call the GIW immediately and we'll get someone out here."

Danny was a bit confused why he didn't mention his parents. Didn't he say at the beginning of class that it was a pity that he didn't look at his parent's ghost things? Unless he was only talking about their science side. Their ghost hunting skills could definitely use some work, but they were amazing scientists.

Agent Z went to click the next slide when the bell rang. "Well, I guess that's it for today. Study your notes and I'll see you all here tomorrow."

Everyone picked up their belongings, happy to finally be done with class. The first day is always the hardest. Danny picked up his bag slinging it across his back; once Sam and Tucker were ready they headed out the door and towards their lockers.

"I can't believe that the Guys in White are here. I thought that the whole telling them that you weren't the ghost they were looking for would have kept them away or something!" Sam growled out, as she opened Danny's locker.

"Maybe they are here for another reason?" Tucker shrugged.

"And what would that be?" Sam rolled her eyes as she shifted books around giving Danny the ones he needed to take home with him. "Umm… research?" Tucker paused with a finger on his chin, "Research on why ghosts keep coming out of the ghost zone?"

He looked at his friends expectantly but they only gave him dead-panned looks and then continued to file through the locker. Tucker was about to open his mouth again, but was interrupted by the voice of Dash.

"Hey, Fentonail!" Danny groaned, hitting his head on the locker he was leaning on.

"Great. This is exactly what I need." He turned to the left to see the blonde football player coming towards him. It was quite a humorous sight for the trio. Considering that Danny now stood a few inches taller than Dash who stopped growing once he hit 5'10. The blonde bully had to now look up slightly to glare Danny down. "What do you want Dash?"

Dash shoved Danny's shoulder making it roughly hit the lockers. "You better not screw this up for me. One more toe out of line and I'll make you pay." He visualized his thoughts by hitting his fist into his palm.

"I'll keep that in mind." Danny rolled his eyes before smirking at the blonde teen. "Now don't you have some balls to go play with?" He's not sure what made him say it, but it felt good. Tucker and Sam barely were able to keep their laughter contained. Dash shot them a glare before punching Danny twice in the gut.

"You get off by watching that or something?" Dash laughed before punching him one more time. Tucker holding Sam's shoulder to keep her away from Dash. "Remember what I said, Fenton. Or there'll be hell to pay." He turned on his heel and towards the field.

"I hate him." Sam growled out as Danny stood up straight. "And it wasn't even a good come-back!"

"As long as he keeps up on me not the others, I don't care. It's not like it hurt anyway." Danny said and grabbed his bag from the ground, slinging it over his shoulder. "Come on. We have to see what the GIW is up to."

They left the school making their way to the parking lot where Sam's car sat. They piled in, heading off to Danny's after getting out of the school traffic. They opened the front door to see Jazz sitting on the couch reading a novel.

"Hey guys! How was the first day?"

"Oh it was just peachy. Except now there is a mandatory ghost 101 class. And if you don't take it, you don't graduate." Danny threw his arms up in the air as he took off his shoes. He took the other's book bags and set them at the bottom of the stairs.

"What?" Jazz closed her book and sat up. The others joined her on the couch and Tucker went into the kitchen to grab a snack. "Who's teaching it? Mom and dad didn't say anything…"

"It's a Guy in White called Agent Z." Sam said. "He's got his teaching degree and everything so we know he's legit and not trying to just pass himself off like those other idiots O and K."

"The only problem is that we don't know the reason for him actually being here." Danny finished.

"Hey! I thought my reason was pretty good!" Tucker yelled from the kitchen.

"On what planet?" Sam shouted back.

"This one." Tucker laughed as he entered the living room carrying a plate with two turkey and cheese sandwiches. He tossed the bag of pretzels he was carrying to Danny and the two cans of coke to Sam.

"What was your reason?" Jazz asked skeptically. She knew Tucker could be kind of vague.

"Research on why ghosts keep coming out of the ghost zone." He shrugged and took a bite out of sandwich.

"They're _always_ working on that Tucker. There has to be some other reason that they're here and that one of them is teaching. Why wouldn't they just hire mom and dad? I'm sure they'd be much cheaper. Even _with_ all the damages they'd do."

"Well fine, just burst my bubble." Tucker grumbled through a mouth full of food.

"Do you have any ideas?" Danny questioned.

"They won't be looking for Danny Fenton, we do know that." Jazz pursed her lips in thought. "They could be looking for anyone who is with Phantom. You know, change the minds of the kids that you're bad and then that could make it easier to capture you like they've been wanting to since they got word of you. But there must be something deeper going on than that. We would have to infiltrate them to truly see what they want here. I'd start with Agent Z."

Danny nodded his head in agreement. Sometimes he was really happy that his sister was in the know now. "We'll just have to dig until we find something."

They spent the rest of the night looking up information on new headquarters for the GIW but found nothing in the general information they had gathered. They decided that if they found out where Agent Z was living in Amity Park then they could find out where the closest headquarters were stationed.

They knew that the GIW had gotten rid of their last headquarters because they had no other purpose to stay there anymore. They had kept tabs on it, and they had yet to return or there wasn't any sort of government involvement in that area since they had left.

They went on patrol that night, Jazz tagged along considering she wasn't going to be able to come on patrols for a long while since she was going off to college, but there were only low level ghosts milling about and it didn't take long to gather them all. Danny was even able to complete the little homework that had been given on the first day. It was later after searching and trying to hack into the GIW website – not that it was hard, but there was no information on it that was buried – Sam and Tucker left for their own homes.

Danny decided to head to bed early, happy that his parents had been down in the lab the entire time working on a new project that they thought would be _the next big breakthrough_ in getting to Phantom.

 **August 20th, 2014**

 **Wednesday**

 **Fenton Household**

 **11:30 p.m.**

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Hey guys! I just wanted to thank you all for taking time to read this story!

Please leave me any comments - good or bad (not flames) Unless of course you think this is total shit. Then tell me so.

Anyway, I plan to post once a week. Typically it will be Sunday nights, but it sometimes it could be later in the week such as Monday or Tuesday but no later.


	2. Straight for the Castle

Hey guys!

I'm so excited at the feedback that I recieved from the first chapter! thank you so much to my 3 reviewers it was greatly appreciated and this chapter is dedicated to you guys: **snoopykid, The Fan of awesome, CaptainDorito**.

I wanted to let everyone know that I'm adding quotes to the beginning of the story. They will be like a clue to the chapter and I'll be pulling them from songs by Halsey, Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco or Taylor Swift. Also, chapter titles will either be titles of their songs, or a song phrase. Actually the title for the Story comes from the song on Halsey's album BADLANDS.

I hope you all enjoy this chapter! please let me know what you think! good or bad.

Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom. Sadly.

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 **I'm headed straight for the castle /**

 **They've got the kingdom locked up**

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 **I Walk the Line: Straight for the Castle**

 **Word count:3,485**

 **9/18/15**

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 **August 21st, 2014**

 **Thursday**

 **Amity Park**

 **Early Morning**

Danny had been woken up in the middle of the night by the box ghost, but instead of spending hours chasing him around, Danny told him to go back when he got bored and went back home to get at least another hour of sleep. Of course he couldn't fall back to sleep no matter how hard he tried and decided to update the ghost files on his computer. There was no point going back out to get the Box Ghost because he was more of a nuisance than anything else.

The rest of the day was fairly normal. Sam and Tucker laughed when Danny told them about the Box Ghost but understood, because they would have done the same thing. Danny told them that if he wasn't in the Ghost Zone by tonight then he'd get him and put him back.

"So, I was thinking about how we were going to figure out where Agent Z is living, and instead of waiting around for him after school to see if he drives to where he lives or something, why don't I go into the teacher's files and get his address."

"That would work. Considering you've hacked in plenty of times before." Sam said as she pulled into the school parking lot. "Do you need to go into the offices?" She parked the car and everyone got out, heading for the building.

"No, it's fairly easy to pass their codes wirelessly."

"To be safe, why don't you save everything that the school has on him to your PDA that way if there's something in there that can lead us to the GIW we'll have it." Danny suggested.

"I'll get it all." Tucker nodded in agreement going to work on his PDA. "I'll probably have it by lunch."

Danny let out a sigh of relief as they approached the boys' lockers. They put away the things they didn't need and grabbed the things they did and were off to class. The day passed by slowly for Danny. But thankfully when lunch came around Tucker had the best news saying that he had gotten the information and left no trace back to his PDA of being the one that hacked the school. Not that they'd check anyway.

There wasn't much on Agent Z. An address was listed; The University of Wisconsin listed from where he got his degrees in teaching and in Paranormal Sciences, and a phone number to reach him. But they all agreed that this was better than nothing considering they had his phone number and address.

The group was a little on edge as they sat in Ghost 101. One: because they hacked the school files to find out where Agent Z lived. Two: because they were more than likely to learn why Danny had been bumped up to a level 8 ghost instead of staying at level 7.

"Good afternoon class." Agent Z greeted them. The class barely gave him a hello. "I know that it's the last class of the day, but bear with me. It's the class you'll have the most fun in." He smiled before turning to his computer. The trio rolled their eyes. It wouldn't be the most fun for them, but it would indeed be the _easiest_.

"Okay, so yesterday we left off with level 6 ghosts. That means today we'll be starting off on level 7 ghosts." He opened the slide show to Spectra, Skulker, and Technus.

"Why is Skulker on this list?" Danny whispered to them. They only shrugged in response.

"A level 7 ghost is a ghost that considers itself superior over others."

"Yep, there we go. That's why." Tucker whispered, they all snickered to themselves.

"They are hard to defeat but they can be captured in ghost traps, especially nets. They need to have a reason to attack you so do not give them a reason to do so."

Valerie instantly raised her hand when she saw the Agent go to click the button for the next slide. "Sir, why is Skulker listed at a level 7? Isn't he a small ghost that uses technology to make him seem more superior?"

"Yes, a good observation." The Agent smiled, "He is a small ghost and without his technological mind he would be listed as a level 3. However with his tech he is dangerous and he has hunted many ghosts and people for that matter and that is why he is listed as a level 7."

"Cool. I'm stronger than Skulker for sure now." Danny smiled at Sam and Tucker.

"You've always been stronger than Skulker. Even _I'm_ tougher than Skulker." Tucker rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, just look at those beefy arms." Sam pursed her lips and pinched at his biceps. Which truly had become well defined because of ghost fighting.

"Thank you. But touching is only for the ladies in love with the TF." He winked her way.

Sam rolled her eyes, before turning her attention back towards the teacher.

"These are some of the level 8 ghosts." the Agent switched the slides and there were pictures of Phantom, Walker, Desiree, Ember, and Fright Knight.

Danny stared at the screen in shock. "You have to be kidding me." He whispered loudly. Though it was drowned out by squeals of excitement from the girls and yells from the guys.

"I'm seriously at their levels? When did this happen?" Danny looked at his two best friends.

"I don't know, but is it just me or is it horribly hilarious that Ember is beating Skulker?" Sam laughed.

"Oh, no that's absolutely hilarious!" Tucker roared with laughter, which wasn't out of place with the talkative students. Danny opened his mouth to speak when Agent Z whistled loudly, quieting everyone.

"If no one stays quiet we're going to stay after every ten minutes per person who keeps talking out of turn. Now that doesn't bother me because I'll be here till 5 anyway but I'm sure you all have plans once the last bell rings."

You could hear a pin drop.

"Good. Now, level 8 ghosts are powerful and difficult to trap. They are extremely powerful over other ghosts in the Ghost Zone and here on Earth. They can attack by being provoked or not. People in our field call level 8 ghosts Bi-Polar because of this."

Danny's mouth dropped open. Tucker openly laughed and Sam bit her fist to keep from laughing like Tucker. Tucker wasn't the only one who had interrupted.

Paulina had screeched out, "Danny Phantom is _not_ Bi-Polar! He protects the city and doesn't attack anyone and is way too hot to be sick!"

"Phantom has done bad things too Paulina." Valerie jumped in before Agent Z could. "He overshadowed the mayor, he stole things when that circus was in town a couple years ago, he for one ruined my life and he has caused all sorts of property damage to buildings and roads and I believe he's one of the main reasons ghosts are always coming here. To fight him."

"That's not true! Phantom saves people from those ghosts."

"But you don't deny anything else?"

Paulina rolled her eyes and flicked her hair over her shoulder, "Well, what do you know anyway? You're poor and have no friends. You're judgments can't be 100% I'm sure."

Valerie growled but the Agent whistled again quieting down the girls. "We'll be staying twenty minutes after." That had everyone groaning and protesting loudly including the trio. "I can make it 30." Everyone was silent. Agent Z nodded, "Now we can reduce the sentence to 10 minutes if everyone is silent for the rest of class unless they raise their hands when they wish to speak." Everyone nodded in agreement.

"Good." He pointed to the picture of Phantom before turning back to the class, "Valerie Gray was correct in her statements. Though I am unsure of how he ruined her life I do believe her."

Sam grumbled from her seat. Danny and Tucker patted her shoulders.

"He is bad but he is also good, which is why he fits into this Bi-Polar category. We're never sure which side of Phantom we'll get when we cross him."

Danny shot his hand into the air before his question fully formed in his brain. "Yes, Mr. Fenton?" The entire class turned to look at him in surprise.

"Well, if you're saying that Phantom can be evil and good and that you don't know which one he'll be when you encounter him. Why are the other three: Walker, Desiree and Fright Night on the board? I understand how Ember falls into this category seeing that she can be pretty nice at times, but the other three? Aren't they solely bad? I've never seen them be on relatively good terms."

The other students stared at him with wide eyes. They weren't used to Danny actually paying attention in class. They _especially_ weren't used to him taking part in the lesson.

"Ah, yes. See, this is where it gets tricky. The Fright Night is here because he falls under this category of strength and having control over others, however he is particularly seen being powered by another ghost in charge therefore he is listed here because without a commander he would not act on his own." Danny rolled his eyes knowing that wasn't true but let the Agent continue.

"Desiree is seen to be someone that's tricky. She has extraordinary power but is controlled by the word 'wish' without this set back she'd rank at a level 9 however any mood that she's in can set her off in a frenzy of nasty wish granting that does not go towards anyone's favor. And lastly Walker is here because he follows rules of the ghost zone but depending on what has happened, he will go off on his own and break a few of his own rules. Does this answer your question Mr. Fenton?"

 _Not really_ , Danny thought. "Yes, thank you." He looked over at his friends and rolled his eyes. The only one that even slightly made sense was Desiree and even then it wasn't all that plausible. Not that he was either. But he wasn't about to tell the GIW how to think. It would waste time he could use to actual save the town.

"Well then, if there are no other questions let us continue on to level 9." He clicked to the next slide in the power point and an image of Plasmius, Pandora and Nocturne.

"Great, I'm still under Plasmius." Danny grumbled to himself. Sam, having heard him, rubbed his arm comfortingly.

"Level 9 ghosts are extremely powerful. It would be easier to try and destroy them than to capture them. They are a rare amount of ghosts with only 40 or 50 in the Ghost Zone. They are almost impossible to defeat. If you see one? Run. Do not engage do not call from the spot where you see them. Find a safe place far away from them and then call for help."

He waited a solid ten seconds, but when no one spoke out he clicked to the final slide. "These are the last in the classes and they are level 10 ghosts." There were pictures of Pariah Dark, Clockwork, and an Observant. "As many of you know the one on the left is Pariah Dark." Paulina raised her hand, but Agent Z kept talking, "The one in the purple cloak is Clockwork who is the master of time and the last on is the High Inquisitor to the Observants who are a group of ancient ghosts and we're not sure where they're from." He turned to Paulina, "Yes?"

"But didn't Danny Phantom defeat Pariah Dark? Wouldn't he be, like, up in level 10 too?"

"Excellent question." Danny furrowed his brows. That _was_ a good question, why _wasn't_ he in a higher level. He almost died. You know, again.

"Phantom may have defeated Pariah Dark but he did not kill him. He only placed him in the sarcophagus of forever sleep. Which we found out through Plasmius – do not ask how – that he in fact was the one to turn the key that locked the sarcophagus. But Pariah Dark was not obliterated. If he had been destroyed permanently than Phantom would be in level 10. However, when mentioned to ghosts that we've captured, he is called by some as the defender of the Ghost Zone. The next Ghost King."

This was ultimately new news to everyone. Danny looked to his left at Sam and Tucker. Their eyes were wide and Tucker's mouth hung open. He could read the questions in their eyes. He figured his own looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

"I haven't heard anything about this. Have you guys?" Danny asked them quietly. Valerie was currently discussing with the Agent about the true probability of the ghost's statement.

"No." They both shook their heads.

"We should go talk to Clockwork this weekend." Tucker looked back up to the front where Valerie, Paulina and Agent Z were still discussing Danny being Ghost King.

"He probably won't have much to say though." Sam jumped in. "It's Clockwork. He likes to give us riddles and what not."

"Sam's right. We could ask Frostbite?"

"Him or Skulker. Those two would be the ones to give us straight answers." Tucker nodded in agreement. "Though I don't really want to search him out. I'd rather not have to dodge to get answers on this."

"Ahem." The trio turned to the front to see Agent Z staring them down from the front of the room, his arms crossed over his chest. "Are you done?"

They each nodded.

Agent Z opened his mouth to continue on with his lesson when the bell rang signaling the end of the school day. Everyone began packing up their things but Agent Z whistled again loudly, stopping all of them.

"You still need to stay for 10 minutes." He told them taking a seat at his desk and went to work at his computer.

Everyone huffed in annoyance, but sat back in their seats knowing that he would make them sit there longer if they didn't. The first five minutes passed slowly. Danny's foot tapped in impatience watching as Sam doodled the crown of fire and ring of rage on a piece of paper she had pulled out. Tucker was watching as well, drumming his finger on his knee.

Danny mulled over what Agent Z had said. Him as the Ghost King? That seemed as impossible as him being… well, the Ghost King! And Plasmius told them? Danny couldn't figure out how they would have gotten that information from him. Or in fact where Vlad had gotten it. If Vlad did know something why would he have told the Guys in White in the first place? Vlad never did anything unless he knew the consequences of what he did. They had to be in his favor, but why?

Danny rubbed his temples in annoyance. This just made his school year ten times harder. And it was only Thursday – the second day of school!

"Alright, you can go. There better not be a next time."

That was all anyone wanted to hear. The trio packed up their bags quickly and made their way to their lockers to get their things. When they were safely in Sam's car, Danny voiced his thoughts from earlier.

"Well, we could just outright ask Vlad, but that's stupid. However, if he did tell the GIW then it would be nice to know that he did tell them then just wondering about it." Sam said.

"Yeah, Sam's right." Tucker said from the passenger seat. He had called shotgun when they were walking to the parking lot. "But I think it's best to wait for him to come to you. After making a big move like that he usually comes to tell you what he's done and then proceeds to tell you that you could still be his son."

"He has become slightly predictable." Danny agreed. "I still don't like waiting around for him, though." He sighed as Sam pulled into Tucker's driveway. "But it's better than going to his house or the office, which usually ends badly."

They all got out of the car, grabbed their bags and headed inside. "We have to pick the lesser of the two evils." Tucker shrugged opening the side door to his home. "Mom! We're home!"

"I have ham sandwiches and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the kitchen!" Mrs. Foley shouted back.

They grabbed the plates as they passed through the kitchen and walked into the living room to tell Mrs. Foley, who was watching TV 'thank you' before heading up to Tucker's room.

They all settled in their spots, Danny in a bean bag chair, Sam on Tucker's bed and Tucker in his desk chair. They all relaxed letting their bodies unwind from the school day. "So what are we going to do about Agent Z?" Sam asked biting into a peanut butter and jelly.

"We could sneak into his apartment and have a look around." Danny shrugged his shoulders. "Otherwise I've got nothing. We don't know where their headquarters are, we don't know how many are around Amity Park and we don't know what they want. Starting at his apartment is the only option we really have." He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration.

"We'll check out his apartment on Saturday. Then whatever information we gather there, say if we find out about the whole Ghost King thing, we can determine if we go see Frostbite that day or later." Tucker agreed taking a second ham sandwich from the plate on his desk.

"So we just sit there and wait for him to leave? Because you know that there has got to be a shield up around the room, or at least a couple of rooms. They were always crazy about guarding their places since you were able to drop Freakshow off inside their headquarters." Sam said.

"That's the plan so far. We'll need to tell Jazz about this so she'll be ready too."

"I'll tell her tonight when I get home." Danny agreed.

"Don't forget to tell her about Vlad."

"Sam, I…"

"She'll want to know Danny." Giving him her 'serious' look, "she'll want to be on the lookout for things before she leaves."

Danny let out a big sigh, "Fine, I'll tell her but…" he gasped and shivered as his ghost sense escaped his lips. "Great just as I thought we could have a ghost free day." He rolled his eyes, got up from the bean bag chair and changed into Phantom. "I'll call you guys if I need back up."

"Just make sure you're back by 6, otherwise mom will be wondering where you went for dinner."

"I'll do my best." Danny gave a two finger salute before phasing out of the wall and flying off to fight whatever ghost decided to ruin his evening.

Sam stared at the spot where Danny disappeared; Tucker on the other hand was pulling out his books deciding to get started on the few papers of homework that were assigned.

"I'm worried Tucker." She voiced her thoughts out loud not looking away from the wall.

"It'll be fine." He shrugged, "We'll figure out what the GIW is planning and kick Vlad's butt."

She turned to look at him as he pulled out a pencil from his backpack. "Yeah, but the Ghost King? _Danny_ as the Ghost King? From what we've seen that's not good."

Tucker put down his things and rolled over to the bed and grabbed Sam's hands looking her in the eyes. "One: we've only known about Pariah Dark and yeah he's pretty horrible, but there had to be someone before him that ruled. Maybe they were good. But Danny isn't like them, he still has his humanity. Dan's not going to happen to him, you know that."

Sam let a beat of silence pass through them, "And the second thing?"

Tucker smiled, "And the second thing is that if he does turn bad – which won't happen – but if he does, we'll be there to kick his ass back into shape. And with whatever Vlad has planned, we've always been able to stop it. Sure he's gotten back up, but knocking down one plan always makes it harder for him to come up with something new."

Sam closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, "Okay, you're right. But, that doesn't make me any less worried."

"Me either. But we only just learned about this. Once we know more it'll make things easier." He gave her a half smile when she opened her eyes before letting go of her hands. "Alright, now we have to do homework, otherwise Danny'll have nothing to copy tomorrow morning."

 **August 21st, 2014**

 **Thursday**

 **Tucker's Bedroom**

 **Late Afternoon**

* * *

As you might have noticed the dates I do at the beginning and end sometimes might not have specific times. It's either because i'm too lazy, or it's just easier to place it in a generalized time.

I hope you guys liked it! Please let me know what you thought! Good or bad :)


	3. Swimming with the Sharks

Hey guys! Thank you all so much for your feedback from Chapter 2! This chapter is dedicated to all of my chapter 2: Straight for the Castle, reviewers: **Snoopykid, CaptainDorito, ShadowDragon357, Werewolf2994, Haromony's Entropy, Guest, Guest 2** and **Andromeda Alpha.**

I hope that you guys like Chapter 3! Please let me know what you think! :)

The Lyric quote is from Vegas Lights by Panic! at the Disco and so is the title.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or Panic! at the Disco.

* * *

 **Where villains spend the weekend**

 **The deep end**

 **We're swimming with the sharks until we drown**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Swimming with the Sharks**

 **Word count: 5,716**

 **9/27/15**

* * *

 **August 22nd, 2014**

 **Friday**

 **Fenton Household**

 **Thursday night/ Friday morning**

Jazz was all for the idea of sneaking into the Agent's apartment and investigating what he had there. She was also concerned and excited to hear about Danny maybe being the Ghost King. She was excited for the fact that maybe all the other ghosts wouldn't be trying to kill Danny. She was also concerned for the same reasons everyone else was: Vlad and his devious plans as well as the fear that his dark side could resurface. But she kept those thoughts about the Ghost King being a tyrant to herself figuring Danny was already dealing enough things and didn't want to add this to the pile. Though she was pretty sure that everyone was on the same page as her.

Friday passed by quickly for everyone: went to school where they were taught about the basic powers ghosts had, fought a few ghosts that did show up, avoided Valerie and came home. They all slept over at Danny's that night so they could leave together to go to the apartment complex where Agent Z resided. Jack and Maddie were excited to hear about their new class, but were not happy when they learned that Agent Z was the one teaching it.

" _A GIW Agent. Why didn't the school ask us, huh Mads?" Jack complained cutting into the Lasagna that Jazz and the others had made for dinner. Sam had made her own vegetarian version of the dish._

" _I'm not sure, honey, but they must have had a good reason to hire those incompetent scientists." Maddie frowned. "Though him having a teaching degree must have helped. Otherwise I'm sure the school would have asked us." She took a bite of her own lasagna._

" _We should ask them to do lab days and we could come in to show the kids some cool things we've discovered!" Jack said enthusiastically. The four teenagers groaned inwardly. Jazz was extremely happy she wouldn't have to be there for that._

" _We'll make a call to the Agency tomorrow."_

The rest of the night was spent with Maddie and Jack down in the basement still working on their newest invention they were sure would help them capture Phantom. The group stayed upstairs planning out what they were going to do before heading out on patrol for the night.

Saturday morning around 10 a.m. they went to check out Agent Z's apartment. They sat in Jazz's car a little bit from the apartment building, with a clear view of the front entrance, waiting for the Agent to leave. They had been sitting there for a half hour already, but so far he had yet to come out.

Danny had tried to enter when they arrived, however just as they predicted there was a ghost shield around the apartment and around all of the apartments surrounding it. He was able to look through the apartment's window invisibly and saw Agent Z looking at something on his computer as he sat on his couch in the standard white suit all Agents had to wear. He also told Tucker about all the security cameras and he was able to get on the signal emitting from them and was ready to press the key on his PDA to disable them; at least when Agent Z finally left his apartment.

They waited another ten minutes before the agent walked out of the front doors, giving a nod to the doorman and stood on the sidewalk. He held a phone to his ear in one hand and a briefcase in the other.

"What's he waiting for?" Jazz voiced all of their thoughts.

A few seconds later they got their answer as a white car pulled up to the building and Agent Z opened the door getting in. The car pulled away from the curb and drove down the street.

"Oh, crap." Sam groaned.

"Jazz, you and Tuck go up there and find anything and take pictures and do whatever you have to. Me and Sam are going to follow them." He grabbed Sam's hand making them intangible and flew them from the car and after the GIW.

"I guess we're gonna have to get passed that doorman." Tucker groaned not happy about it.

"He looks pretty laid back. I'm sure we'll be fine." Jazz got out of the car, Tucker following suit. "We just have to say we're visiting someone."

"But he knows everyone that comes through this building. We can't just make up a name."

"Oh, right." Jazz looked around and saw on the windows that there was an advertisement looking for renters for the building. She grinned as she got an idea. "Follow my lead." She grabbed his hand as she dragged him towards the doorman.

* * *

 **August 23rd, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **Just outside Amity Park**

 **10:55 a.m.**

Sam and Danny had been following the car as it took routes towards Springfield, IL. They had gotten about five minutes outside of Amity Park when the GIW car veered to the right. They knew it wasn't because they had spotted them seeing as Danny was keeping them invisible. Down the road a little further the road began to lift up and created a type of underground tunnel that the car disappeared into. Danny tried to get inside, however he ran full force into a ghost shield, sending electric shocks through his body. Sam passed harmlessly through, but was pulled back as Danny couldn't go any further.

The secret underground tunnel closed just as Danny landed them, making it into a plain road again. Danny groaned and changed back to human. It would be idiotic to stay in his ghost form if they had to find a way to open the tunnel from the outside. And he really didn't want another run in with the ghost shield.

"How are we going to find them now?" Sam complained as she crawled on the ground looking for any signs of an opening.

"I don't know. We need to figure out how to open this thing. Then we could just follow them." Danny searched the opposite side of the road for an opening like Sam was doing. He was thankful that it was a side road because no other cars were coming and it would seem pretty odd for two teens to be crawling on the ground.

Sam got up and crossed her arms taking a look around to see if she could spot anything out of the ordinary. Trees lined the roadside but there was nothing out of the odd in their placement. She walked towards the side of the road hoping to spot something on the shoulder that may have been triggered when the car passed it to open the secret tunnel. But she was coming up short. She turned on her heel and a flash of light blinded her from the other side of the road. Moving her head out of the lights direction she noticed that a cube like object sat on the opposite shoulder, hidden in the foliage. She jogged over to see that it was a blue box that was covered in reflective material.

She tried to pull it from the ground, but it wouldn't budge. Sam wondered how they used it as a source if there were no openings in the box at all. She began to feel around for something, she wasn't sure what, but she hoped if her fingers passed over the box in the right way it would give her information on it. She was about to give up when her fingers passed over each side of the cube at the same time and the top slid back on the cube. _Yes!_

"Danny!" She called looking into the box to see a white button. "I think I found it!" She pressed the button and a whirring sound came from the left and saw the road begin to rise. Danny, who had been on his way to her, stopped half way to watch the road rise in amazement.

"Good job, Sam." His smile was so wide it could have split his face. "Let's go." He held out his hand for her. She took it and they descended into the underground tunnel.

There were lights that illuminated the area every couple hundred feet. The tunnel opening closed behind them as they took in the tunnel. There were no signs of openings in the walls as they walked and they decided it would be best to see how far the tunnel went until they needed to turn around.

* * *

 **August 23rd, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **GIW Headquarters Tunnel**

 **11:40 a.m.**

"How long have we been walking?" Sam asked after they had walked for what felt to be much longer than what they had been.

Danny pulled out his phone, "Twenty minutes."

"Maybe we should turn back and come back when we have some actual transportation. This tunnel goes on for too long to keep walking."

"How about we fly there?" Without waiting for an answer, Danny changed quickly into Phantom, except the instant he did alarms started blaring, guns were out and aimed at him and Sam, and red lights blinked in and out.

Just as quickly he changed back but nothing changed except that the guns were now pointing in every direction trying to find the ectoplasmic source. "Run!" Sam yelled and pulled Danny back the way they had come. They made it a minute down the tunnel when they knew they were being chased as bright white lights appeared behind them illuminating the tunnel ahead. Danny growled out in frustration.

"Crap. They're gonna catch us." Sam grumbled, pushing herself faster, which wasn't much. Her lungs were already pushed to the maximum and she knew they'd get caught before she was close to running out of breath.

"No they're not." Danny's flash when he changed was barely seen through the bright white lights but Sam found herself being held against Danny's body and the wind whistling past her, hair whipping her face. Ectoguns shot at them but Danny made an ectoshield ball around them to keep the fire from hitting both of them before trying to phase through the ceiling. But he hit the ceiling hard, a crackle of electricity shooting through him.

"Shit."

"There has to be another manual way out." Sam reassured him hating that they hadn't thought to check for a way to get out before they went in. "Go all the way back to the entrance."

Danny nodded in agreement and looked over his shoulder seeing the cars approaching faster. "Hold on."

She grabbed him in a death grip and he shot off so fast she was happy she laid her face into his shoulder. They made it to the end of the tunnel in a sixteenth of the time it took to walk it; the cars were far behind them but still gaining.

"Where is it?" Danny changed back as they settled on the ground figuring that there had to be another shield surrounding the door area. They were crazy on their security. The ectoguns stopped firing, but the alarms and red lights were still going making it hard to see specifics.

"Most likely along this wall." They began looking for it, the lights of the cars approaching too fast for either of their liking. They could hear less of an echo of the motors in the cars after 30 seconds.

"Hey! I fou…"

"Stop! Put your hands up!" A GIW agent shouted, cutting Sam off.

She looked to her left catching Danny's eye; he gave her a slight nod indicating he wanted her to push the small blue button she had finally found. She slowly put her hands in the air, Danny following her lead.

"Turn around slowly." The same GIW called out.

Instead of doing what they asked, Sam quickly pressed the button. Danny turned around quickly shooting a large snowball at the two cars encasing them, making it easier for them to escape.

The door/ road opened upward, Danny changed again grabbing Sam before flying out. He shot a ball of ectoplasm in front of them. It went a couple of feet before fizzling out against the shield. There was no time for words as Danny positioned Sam to where he was holding her head with one hand and wrapped an arm around her body then quickly changed back and they fell, tumbling through the shield and onto the pavement.

They each cried out as the gravel scratched their skin. They rolled a few times, the momentum of Danny's flight speed and the fall pushing them further down the road.

When they finally stopped moving Danny got up instantly groaning as his body ached in protest. "Come on." He helped Sam to her feet. "If we make it to the woods they'll probably go right past us." They ran to the right hoping that the GIW would miss them.

"They usually aren't bright enough to figure out things too quickly." Sam was able to chuckle as they made it past the tree line and further into the forest. A few yards in Sam pulled Danny to a stop and they hid behind a large tree. They heard the cars whiz past them and continue down the road. Danny was about to step out of their hiding spot but Sam held him back.

"Wait, make sure they're not walking around." She whispered. She could kick his ass for almost getting them caught again. Well, she was still going to kick his ass for his earlier stunt but she couldn't worry about that right now.

Instead of pulling back all the way to be hidden completely by the tree, Danny peeked around the edge of the trunk. "I don't see anyone." He whispered back to her.

"We should wait a minute to make sure."

He nodded and hid back behind the trunk. "How's your injuries? No broken bones right?" he looked down at her and was reminded again how much taller he was than her now.

"Nothing a few bandages won't fix. And no, nothing broken." She locked eyes with his blue ones and gave him a small smile. "You?"

"Nothing bad." His voice barely voice above a whisper. They held eyes and she wasn't sure how long they did but she didn't want to look away from him.

"Damn, they must have gotten away." The loud voices of the GIW interrupted them. Their cheeks turned pink and quickly looked away from each other and towards the road. The agents were making their way back into the tunnel. They waited until the road returned to normal before coming out from hiding.

"Let's go. Maybe Tuck and Jazz found something." Danny said before grabbing Sam around her waist, changing into Phantom and flying off through the trees back towards Amity Park.

* * *

 **August 23rd, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **Fenton Works**

 **12:25 p.m.**

When Danny and Sam reached Fenton Works they were surprised to see Jazz's car sitting in the driveway. "I figured they'd still be at the apartment." Danny furrowed his brows.

"Maybe they didn't have any luck either." Sam said as Danny turned intangible and flew into his bedroom.

Tucker and Jazz were sitting on Danny's bed but instead of talking about GIW things like Danny and Sam thought they would be, they were talking about Jazz and her excitement about living in the dorms at Washington University.

Danny landed and set Sam on her feet before changing back into Fenton. "So I'm guessing you guys didn't find anything?"

"No. His place was spotless. Nothing there except extra changes of clothes and sunglasses. And a little bit of food in the fridge." Jazz answered. "What happened with you guys? You're all scratched up." She got up quickly, going into Danny's bathroom.

"We found where the entrance to their headquarters is."

"Yeah, except Mr. Clueless over here changed into Phantom while we were in the tunnel and got us chased out." Sam gave him a pointed look telling him he had been pretty stupid.

"At least you guys found out where they are." Tucker said as Jazz came out of the bathroom holding a first aid kit.

"So you got chased out. How'd you get these scrapes everywhere?" Jazz made Sam sit down on the bed and went to cleaning the up the dried blood from the major hits.

They proceeded to tell her and Tucker what happened not leaving out any important details. All the while Jazz bandaged the major cuts Sam received. Danny's were almost healed by the time she had finished with Sam and he found no reason to bother with them.

"Well I agree with Sam on this one. I could definitely kick your butt for pulling a stunt like that. But I'm extremely happy you were able to get out of there." Jazz got up and put away the first aid kit.

"Too bad you weren't able to find the second entrance." Tucker took off his glasses, cleaning them with his shirt. "Now we should get ready to go to Frostbite's."

"Where are Maddie and Jack?" Danny asked. Everyone grabbed their backpacks to pull out their books so they could fit weapons, a thermos and a few other things in there for the short trip.

"They said something about driving up to Chicago to pick up a part they couldn't get in Springfield. Looks like we'll be alone for dinner. Again." Jazz sighed picking up her own backpack, "I'll get the Spector Speeder ready." And she walked out of the bedroom.

Danny watched his sister leave with a frown marring his face, "I hate that Jazz is taking such a hard hit with them."

"She hasn't had the time to wrap her head around the fact that they don't really act like parents anymore. Once she sees them as only people it'll become a lot easier." Tucker placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"I know, I just want her to not have to deal." He picked up his bag and strapped it to his back while letting out a long sigh. "We can talk about this later. Are we all ready?" Sam and Tucker both nodded and they headed down to the lab.

Jazz had the Specter Speeder up and running with the device that Frostbite had given them, hooked into the main computer to make sure that the Speeder didn't shut down because of the temperature when they entered the realm of the Far Frozen. Once they were all in and settled Jazz opened the portal quickly zooming through. As soon as they were clear she hit the button to close it before directing the Speeder to the Far Frozen. The ride wasn't very long, only taking ten minutes because they didn't run into any ghosts they knew – like Walker. When they landed outside of the central building that housed their medical centers, labs and guest housing (which was only added on once the group started making regular visits), they were met with Frostbite's second in command, Hailstorm.

"Great One and family." Hailstorm smiled. He looked similar to Frostbite with ice thorns on top of his head and a gold arm band on his right arm as well as a golden belt. However, he didn't done a blue cape and wore the orange cloth just as the others of the realm did. "What a pleasant surprise."

"Hey, Hailstorm." They all waved from the inside of the speeder. Jazz, Sam and Tucker pulled on their heavy coats they had received the first time they had visited.

"How's everything in the realm going?" Danny asked walking out of the speeder. "No trouble with the infimap?"

"No the infimap has stayed safely in our grasp." Hailstorm and Danny shook hands and the others joined them out in the snow. "Everything has been going smoothly in the realm, which means something dangerous is about to happen." He shook Tucker's hand and hugged each of the girls.

"That's something I think everyone can agree on." Sam laughed, but quickly sobered slightly, "We're going to need to talk with Frostbite as well as you."

"He is in the labs. I will take you too him." Hailstorm began to lead them into the Central Building.

"Actually this is a more private matter that we need to talk to you both about." Danny said, "If we could meet in one of the meeting rooms instead that would be best."

"Of course. I shall inform him after I show you to the meeting rooms."

"Thank you, Hailstorm."

"How are you and Crystalrose doing?" Jazz asked, changing the tense atmosphere to a happier one, as they made their way down a wide hallway.

"Very well. Three days ago I proposed to her." His serious expression turned into a smile, and pressed a button on the wall to open a sliding door to one of the meeting rooms. "And she said yes."

"That's great!" Jazz exclaimed, the others showing their excitement as well. Jazz and Sam gave him another hug while Tucker and Danny shook his hand in congratulations.

"Thank you all, I shall tell Crystalrose of your congratulations. Now though, I shall go and inform Frostbite that you are all here." He gave them a parting smile and disappeared through the door.

The team took seats at the icy blue table and waited a total of five minutes for Frostbite to walk through the door with Hailstorm following behind him.

"Great One!" He exclaimed, quickly grabbing hold of Danny and crushing him into a hug.

"Hello Frostbite." Danny chocked out, unable to breathe or move as the yeti had his arms pinned down.

"It is great to see you." He placed Danny back on the ground who coughed and sucked in a breath. "And your family is here as well!" He exclaimed going around the table giving each member of team Phantom the same bone crushing hug he gave Danny. Everyone ended up coughing and sucking in a breath when he was done.

After giving each of the team their hugs he took a seat at the head of the table next to Danny and Hailstorm. "What can we do for you and your family Great One?" He questioned folding his big paws together.

Danny knew it was best to just get it out instead of leading up to it, "Do you know anything about me becoming the new Ghost King?"

The smile instantly disappeared from Frostbite's face. He looked over to Hailstorm who was wearing a shocked expression. The silence stretched on for a full minute where Hailstorm and Frostbite never looked away from each other. They finally broke contact with a slight nod from Hailstorm.

"I have heard… rumors… that you were to be the new Ghost King."

"So it's true then?" Danny insisted. He couldn't believe this, "Just because I've defeated Pariah Dark?"

Frostbite shook his head, "No, no. I do not know if the rumors are true. However yes, many ghosts believe that you are to be the new King since you defeated Pariah by placing him back in the sarcophagus of forever sleep."

"How many ghosts?" Sam asked hesitantly. She was doing her best to keep a straight face. It was still only a rumor, which means that it might not be true. She didn't want Danny to have to have another thing plopped onto his plate. He was already extremely tired and worn out. Now with Vlad potentially having a plan quickly forming it would take even more of a toll on them all; especially him.

"The few that I have heard from are the only few that believe this to be true."

"Which few?"

Danny asked the same time Jazz questioned, "What do you believe?"

Frostbite looked Danny in the eye as he spoke, "I have spoken with Princess Dora, Klemper, the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady, as well as Amorpho and Ember McClain. They each believe you to be the next Ghost King. And I must say that I agree with their claims."

The team couldn't believe what they were hearing.

Jazz was left speechless as questions ran through her mind about what this meant for who her brother was. If he was to be the King of the Ghost Zone would that mean he was more ghost than human? Would he turn fully ghost? Would he turn into Dan? She didn't want her baby brother to lose himself.

Tucker was kind of excited, but that was the more societal thoughts clouding his judgement for a couple of seconds. In the human world it was great to be a King; riches and palaces and great parties. But this was the Ghost Zone. And human thinking just didn't work in the Zone. His mind was going crazy because he thought that Vlad had closed the actual sarcophagus. Which would actually make Vlad the Ghost King if everyone was basing this off the idea that whoever closed the sarcophagus would be the King. And having Vlad be the Ghost King instead would be worse than anyone else he could think of.

Sam's earlier thoughts were still bouncing around in her head; if Danny was truly to be the Ghost King she didn't want to see him be driven into the ground. She knew if he made the decision he would also be fighting more and more ghosts. The Ghost Zone went on indefinitely. An infinity of ghosts that they have yet to meet. So many of them hated Danny and truly wanted him dead. And if word got around that if you were to defeat the Ghost King and you would automatically assume that position, then almost every ghost that wanted power would becoming after Danny. There had to be some other reason for Danny to maybe being the Ghost King. There just had to be.

Danny himself however would think one thing and be instantly onto the next thought. Was he human anymore? Would he turn out evil like Dan? He promised he wouldn't turn evil, he just couldn't. What about Vlad? Were there other Ghost Kings? Were they all evil as well if there were more before Pariah Dark? Did he have to wear the Crown of Fire and the Ring of Rage or were those only for Pariah Dark? Would other ghosts be coming to attack him? What would this mean for his family? Did the Ghost Zone truly need a King? Why was it him and not a stronger ghost? Who decided these things?

"The fuck." Danny breathed out looking down at the table running both hands through his hair.

"Danny." Jazz quickly reprimanded even though she knew cursing was kind of part of this situation she still didn't condone its use.

"Sorry, Jazz." He gave his sister an apologetic look then looked back toward Frostbite.

"I am sure you have many questions Great One, I may not be able to answer most of them. I will do my best however to give you the answers you seek." Hailstorm voiced his agreement with Frostbite.

Danny was still riffling through his head trying to determine what question he wanted to ask first but he couldn't pick one. Thankfully he didn't have to pick one first as Tucker asked, "You said that Danny would be the King because he was able to lock Pariah back in the sarcophagus of forever sleep. But Vlad was the one to actually turn the key. So wouldn't that mean, based on what you had said, Vlad would be Ghost King instead?"

Frostbite looked almost taken aback by the question, "Given what I know and understand about what transpired, because it was Danny to truly defeat Pariah and held him in the sarcophagus it would be Danny who would have won against him, not Vlad."

"But there has to be some other way or reason to become the Ghost King. Because otherwise any ghost that wanted to could potentially defeat, kill, anything honestly, to get Danny out of the seat of power. If he is in fact the Ghost King." Sam said, and the others could hear the worry in her voice. Danny reached over with his right hand to grab Sam's left one in his tightly. His thumb rubbed soothing circles on her skin, trying to keep her calm. He was wondering about this himself now too.

"I do not know." Frostbite answered, disappointing the teens even though they knew he wouldn't know all the answers.

"Though, that is how Pariah Dark gained control of being Ruler of the Ghost Zone from the previous ruler." Hailstorm explained catching their attention once again.

"So there was a Ghost King before Pariah Dark?" Danny asked, still holding onto Sam's hand.

"Yes, only one." Hailstorm nodded. "She was the Queen of the Ghost Zone. We here at the Far Frozen do not know much of her. We do know that she is half the age of Death itself. She was the one to create the Crown of fire and Ring of rage as she was knowledgeable in the magical arts. She was locked away just as Pariah Dark was by the Ancient Ghosts because she was destroying the human population. Many refer to her either as 'Ancient' – though we are unsure why – or Aletikize."

"Ale-tee-keeze." The group sounded out.

"Yes," Frostbite nodded wishing he had more information to give to them on her. "I am sorry, that is all we know on her."

"That's okay. It's a lot of information actually. A lot more than we knew before anyway." Tucker was rapidly typing everything into Carol – his PDA.

"You are welcome Tucker. What other questions do you have?"

"Will this affect my humanity?" Danny asked quickly, staring into the ghost yeti's eyes. "Do I have to be a full ghost for this?" Sam squeezed his hand and latched onto Tucker's as well who had already had his other hand grabbed onto by Jazz.

"I would not believe so Great One. Though you are one of the first halfa's in existence and I do not know what that outcome might be. I am sure that this would not lead to what you are thinking. Only time will tell though."

Danny closed his eyes and rubbed his temples with his free hand; the others slumped down in their seats. The biggest question they had and it couldn't be answered.

"Again, I am sorry for…"

"No." Danny looked back up at the ruler of the Far Frozen. "Don't be sorry. You have helped greatly do not doubt that. We thank you for what information you were able to provide us."

"It is my pleasure." Frostbite closed his eyes bowing his head slightly towards him before returning to his upright seated position, Hailstorm following his lead.

There was a pregnant pause before a loud rumbling was heard in the room. Frostbite and Hailstorm jumped from their chairs looking about the room wondering what the noise had been since they had not heard such rumblings before. Danny, Sam and Jazz all looked at Tucker who was blushing a light shade of pink.

"Hey! Don't blame me! We skipped out on lunch. You know I have to eat regularly." He let go of the girls' hands and folded his arms across his chest.

The group was happy for the intrusion of Tucker's stomach and was chuckling at their friend but, they all realized just how hungry they were as well.

Frostbite and Hailstorm bellied out laughs with relief, "Would you all care to join us for dinner? It is no problem of ours to host you for this evening."

"That would be excellent Frostbite, thank you." Danny smiled up at him.

"Dinner begins in a few hours. You are welcome as I have stated previously to enjoy the village. Sadly I must depart from you and return to the lab. I bid you all good-bye and shall see you for dinner." Frostbite bowed to Team Phantom who respectively stood from their chairs bowing back before he walked out of the sliding doors of the meeting room.

"Crystalrose is currently in the weapons training room with a class. I am quite certain she would enjoy having you four join." Hailstorm informed them taking the few large steps towards the door. "I must also depart for I have another meeting to attend too. Be safe." They all bowed respectively to each other before Hailstorm made his own exit through the door.

"What do you guys say; learn how to use another weapon like they do?" Danny asked, he could use that time to maul over what he had just learned.

"I'm in." Sam smiled, squeezing his hand. She always liked that the Yeti's were so versatile in their weaponry. Being able to move differently from what they learned on the human plane was something she was fascinated in.

"Me too." Tucker agreed still typing away on Carol.

"I'll go to say hi, but I'm going to go meet up with Winter in the library."

"Jazz you always go to the library." Danny complained pressing the button on the wall to open the sliding door and walked out to the hallway making a left back towards the way they came from.

"That's because books are my calling, while weaponry is your guy's thing." She shrugged, but smiled when she noticed that Sam and Danny, who were walking in front of her, were still holding hands and walking particularly close to each other. From the corner of her eye she saw Tucker snap a few pictures.

"Come on Jazz. One class." Sam pleaded looking behind her quickly at the red head.

"No, no. I'll be fine. I have our weapons and I know how to use those. I'm just fine on my weapon learning."

"But it's not just the weapon we're learning about its different techniques that go with them."

"Yeah, and you can show me them later." Jazz said with a fierce 'that's final' in her voice making Danny and Sam be quiet about the matter.

"Um guys?" Tucker question looking up from his PDA. "Can we go to the kitchen first? I'm starving."

 **August 23rd, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **Far Frozen**

 **Saturday afternoon**

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I hope you guys liked it!

I know that some people don't like cursing and what not. If you're offended by this, then either when you come across a curse word, I suggest you read over it, or do not read my story. Teenagers curse. I curse! and i'm definitely not a teen anymore. I won't have them cursing around their parents; at least the really bad ones but they will be cursing in my story.

On that note, please let me know what you thought, whether it's good or bad :)


	4. Miserable & Magical

Hey guys! So I know things have been kinda slow and after this chapter I promise things are gonna pick up a lot more. Maybe not in the way you're thinking but still. Anyway, this chapter is the shortest of all the chapters so far but it's still chock-full of information. I would like to thank all of my reviewer of chapter 3! Thank you so much! **Creepy-Pasta, Guest, snoopykid, CaptainDorito and ShadowDragon357**

Disclaimer: Sadly do not own Danny Phantom. I wish I did. Also don't own the Lyrics from Taylor Swift in the quote.

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 **Well count to ten, take it in**

 **This is life before you know who you're gonna be**

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 **I Walk the Line: Miserable and Magical**

 **Word count: 2,931**

 **10/3/2015**

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 **August 23** **rd** **, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **Far Frozen: Central Building**

 **Saturday Afternoon**

The team did in fact head to the large kitchen in the Central Building where the workers were excited to see them again. They gave Danny and Jazz each half of a cooked fish and gave Tucker a whole cooked fish knowing how he ate incredible amounts of meat. They were able to make Sam a bowl of cooked rice and placed the cooked vegetables they had already made over the rice. The rice was actually from the food section in the pantry that the trio had stocked for themselves – mainly for Sam – because much of the food in the Far Frozen did not follow the vegetarian diet.

After eating their food they had gone to join Crystalrose's weapon and techniques class in the Tactical building. They still had their coats on and were able to make the trek outside easily on the snow packed paths to the other building. Crystalrose had been extremely excited to see them all. She showed them her bracelet that Hailstorm had made for her and given to her for her acceptance to his proposal. Sam thought it had been beautiful as it was an ice band with multiple roses engraved delicately into the ice.

After the happy hello's had passed the trio joined the other younger yeti's – who were just as excited to meet the team as they were – and Jazz left to join her friend Winter in the library which was in a separate building. Besides Sam, Winter was now one of her best girlfriends. They had met on Jazz's second time to the Far Frozen when she had questioned Frostbite on their readings and where they kept them. They had all gone to the library and Winter, who was similar to a librarian loved how interested Jazz was in what they had to offer in the three story building. They were friends ever since.

Later that night they all ate dinner with the members of the Far Frozen. The entire tribe was excited for Team Phantom to join them and spent most of the night speaking with members of the tribe. They told stories of their fights with Undergrowth and what it was like in the human realm at the moment. Each yeti was fascinated by their stories and wanted to know more but they told them that they'd be back soon and would finish their stories then.

They left to go back to the human realm with a promise from Frostbite and Hailstorm to look into Danny becoming the Ghost King. They assured them that if anything of great importance was found they would contact the Team as soon as possible. When they arrived back in the lab, thankfully with only an interruption from Klemper, Tucker texted his mom to tell her that he was staying at Danny's while Sam called her grandma Ida to let her know as well. They were pretty tired from their crazy day and headed off to bed.

Danny was woken up in the middle of the night by his ghost sense and left without telling Tucker and Sam, wanting them to get as much sleep as possible. When the others woke that morning and he still wasn't back they all went out to help him finish up the final ghosts fights before coming back to the house and making breakfast even though it was lunch time.

They spent the rest of the day logging what information they had into Danny's computer while Sam wrote in the Team's journal about what happened with the GIW and in the Far Frozen. After so many fights with Technus they figured it was the best idea to have more than two backups for their information on the computer.

The only places they had been logging their information was in Danny's computer and Tucker's PDA – which saved to his computer. But when Technus took over the computers when he was downloaded into the system they decided that they would back up to Sam's computer, on multiple flash drives - and back up flash drives. Tucker had been able to make a few flash drives that were able to hold up to 400 GB of information. He had been able to take data designs from one of the highest USB flash drives that he was able to get a hold of and make his own.

They had already filled 2 of the 5 flash drives he made and then they broke each one up into more and more flash drives that way the information was saved on multiple fronts and were labeled and organized easily for quick findings. It had actually been Sam's idea to create the journals because if something did happen – because Technus was unpredictable on the technology front – then it would be best to have everything written down.

The journals stayed at her house under her bed in boxes and were organized by date. She didn't carry their newest one with her because she didn't want it to get stolen or destroyed or read by anyone else. It currently stayed in Jazz's room because they knew if it was in Danny's room Maddie would have probably snooped and read it. And they really didn't need Maddie or Jack asking questions.

After they had everything saved Tucker and Sam departed for their respective houses and Jazz and Danny made dinner for four. They weren't sure when their parents would be back but Jazz suggested that they make extra and leave the burger patties in the fridge so they wouldn't have to make anything.

Danny went on patrol that night letting Jazz tag along since he only had one week left with her. At the end of the week on Saturday, August 30th they were going to be moving her down to Washington University in St. Louis. He was going to miss her a lot but he had pushed those feelings to the back of his heart not wanting to deal with them till they were staring at him in the face. It would make the passing week much easier.

There were only a few ghosts out that night and Danny was able to get the last of his homework done before they each headed off to bed.

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 **August 25** **th** **, 2015**

 **Monday**

 **Casper High**

 **10:15 a.m.**

The next day went well until they entered their U.S. history class. The teacher had the projector on showing the live footage from where Vlad was campaigning to continue on as Mayor of Amity Park.

He was standing in front of a children's home downtown with the orphaned children seated behind him. Crowds cheered below him as he stood behind a podium with multiple microphones set up for him to speak into.

"I will be continuing my trials of making sure that these children will be able to have a better learning experience. This extension of educational services does not only pertain to these children behind me but to every single one of your sons or daughters. It is time to take our place back on top in the education system. As I stated before, my reform project will focus on using funding on getting the most up to date books children need as well as sending teachers who need it back to school so that our future will be the best it can be." The cheering was so loud that Vlad had to take a minute to wait for it to calm down. "I want to thank Headmistress Kraelin and the children that reside in _George P. Bishop Home for Children_ for being wonderful hosts and if you could all say it with me, 'Our Future is ours to Control'."

"Our Future is ours to Control!" The children and people in the crowd shouted.

"Thank you all." Vlad waved and walked off the stage.

Danny, Sam and Tucker had sat themselves down in their seats as they had watched Vlad finish his speech and were now looking at the screen in annoyance.

"Great, now it seems like people actually like him." Danny groaned looking over at his best friends.

"I know, I wish mayor Montez would run again." Tucker said. "Even though if he did Vlad would just overshadow everyone again to make sure he got the votes."

"Yeah, because the other two candidates don't stand a chance. Or at least that's what my parents said." Sam told them pulling out her materials for class, "Apparently over the weekend they were invited to each of the other candidates houses for some huge party and everyone was putting up more of a fake act then if someone was trying to hide an affair."

"Great." Danny rubbed his eyes tiredly. Though he had gotten enough sleep last night, this news was bringing all of the other information they learned this weekend back to the front of his mind. Not that he hadn't been thinking over the Ghost King thing, it was just settled on the back burner. "I just want November to be here so we can stop seeing those stupid campaign commercials on the T.V. all the time."

Before the either of them could answer the teacher called the class to attention ending their short conversation.

It was in Danny's next class, honors Biology when his ghost sense went off. He reluctantly raised his hand into the air. The teacher let him go to the bathroom with a look of disappointment on her face that he tried to ignore. Danny ran to the bathroom quickly changing into Phantom once he checked to make sure it was clear and flew out of the school.

He looked around the entire school, but didn't see any ghost. He flew towards the park considering that was where most of the ghosts liked to start their hauntings. He knew he was heading to the right place when he heard the screaming of the locals. He picked up his speed, flying in the direction the people were running away from.

He knew he arrived when he saw a ghost floating above one of the fountains in the park. He was short and extremely heavy. He wore grey sweatpants, a black T-shirt with the Danny Phantom symbol on it, and pair of tennis shoes. Greasy straight bright red hiar reached his shoulders. In his right hand he was holding what looked to Danny to be a T.V. remote control. Overall it looked like he hadn't showered in days.

"Hahaha!" The ghost laughed, "You'll do best as Woody!" he called out pointing the remote at a child the opposite way. A red beam of energy shot out of the remote as the ghost pushed a button and hit the child before Danny could move. Instantly the child changed into a child version of Woody from Toy Story.

Danny looked around to see that others had been changed as well, he could see two people who looked like they came from the movie Avatar, another person was running around like Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc., Leia from Stars Wars, cartoon Batman and someone else as cartoon Superman, Captain Kirk from the older Star Trek series, and he saw one more person as that guy who is the main character from CSI: Miami who always wears his sunglasses. Danny couldn't remember the guy's name in the show.

He couldn't believe his eyes. All these people were being turned into characters from movies and T.V. shows. This was going to be interesting.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" He shouted flying closer to the ghost, "Shouldn't you be binge playing video games in your parent's basement?" He folded his arms across his chest.

The ghost turned around to face Danny a smile on his face, "Danny Phantom! We meet at last!"

"Yeah." Danny drawled out, "And you are?"

"I am your worst nightmare." He tried to make his face contort to one of anger and make him look scarier but it only made Danny burst with laughter.

He clutched his sides as he laughed in the air, who did this guy think he was? "Who are you trying to quote? Mushu from Mulan?"

The guy looked crest-fallen, "No. I was trying to be Rambo in Rambo III."

Danny shrugged, "Sorry, never seen any past the first one."

"But they're so good."

"Yeah, I'm sure they are." Danny rolled his eyes, "So are you going to tell me your name or am I just going to have to kick your butt without it?"

"Ugh, fine." The ghost rolled his eyes, "I'm Chaser."

"Chaser?" Danny thought that name was almost as bad as the box ghost's name. "As in Channel chaser?"

"Exactly! Well, actually not really like 'channel' but more like 'movie chaser'."

Danny rolled his eyes. Without waiting for anything else figuring he had him distracted enough he shot Chaser in the stomach with a blast of ectoplasm sending the ghost to the ground. "You're going to change these people back." He demanded floating over to Chaser and flew above him, his arms crossed. "Otherwise I'm gonna have to call your mom."

"Yeah right." Chaser got up slowly, "I'm gonna go have way more fun." And with a pop gone was Chaser and in his place was Flash from the Justice League. "See ya ghost boy." He gave a two finger salute and was off, a red streak following in his wake.

"Shit."

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 **August 25** **th** **, 2015**

 **Monday**

 **Casper High: outside quad**

 **11:45 a.m.**

"I hope Danny's doing okay." Sam said as she took a bite of her barbequed tofu sandwich.

"If he needs help he'll call." Tucker wasn't too worried about Danny and continued to chow down on his sloppy joes that was being served for lunch that day.

"What if it's Vlad?" Sam put down her sandwich and rubbed her temples. She hated how worried she got when big things started back up again.

"It's way too early in the game for Vlad to be trying to get Danny. There's no need to worry so much yet."

"Well, it's hard not to." She huffed. "At least I'm not overly so like Jazz is." She sighed resting her head on her hand.

Tucker nodded chewing through another bite. "I can't believe she's already off to college."

"Yeah, I'm going to miss her." Sam truly would miss her. She had grown quite attached to the red head and saw her as one of her friends. She wasn't as close as Danny and Tucker but it was nice to have another girl to talk to at times.

Suddenly, something red streaked through the outside quad stopping in the middle of the area where everyone was eating, "Hello students!" he called out happily, waving at everyone.

Sam and Tucker's mouth's dropped open with the rest of the student body's. They were staring at the Flash. The Flash was supposed to a fictional character.

"You're the Flash!" Dash yelled, standing up quickly from his bench.

"Yep!" With a pop the Flash changed into Darth Vader. "I'm also Luke's father." The imposing, deep bass voice of Darth Vader could be heard across the entire quad.

The student's all shrieked and backed away from Flash/ Vader. With another pop he was changed back into a twenty-something year old man that looked like he hadn't showered in days. Both Tucker and Sam found it strangely odd that he was wearing a Danny Phantom T-Shirt. "I'm Chaser and tonight I'm going to be your host." He laughed and lifted up a remote that he aimed at Dash.

Dash shrieked along with the rest of the students and tried to hide behind Kwan. That didn't help him though as a red beam shot from the remote and hit Dash. Now though instead of Dash standing in front of everybody, Phil Dunphy from Modern Family was staring back at everybody.

"Uh, guys? Why do I look like that Modern Family guy?" His voice was the same as Phil Dunphy's however he acted just as Dash did.

"Because he's a ghost that has the power to change you into anyone from any T.V. show or movie." Danny zoomed in, stopping a few feet from Chaser.

Sam thought that this would be an interesting fight as the students of Casper High once again cheered for their hero.

"Come on Chaser, just get in the thermos and no one gets hurt."

Tucker chuckled to himself knowing Danny only said that when the ghost was pretty easy to catch.

Chaser turned around to face Danny, "No way man! This is the most fun I've had since I died!"

"Yeah, well you're going to have to have 'this much fun since you died' in the Zone." Danny floated down till he was standing on the grass a few feet away from Sam and Tucker's table.

"I don't think so. Hope you guys have fun." His smile turned creepily wide and he hit a button on his remote surrounding everyone in a white light and then the students, teachers and Danny were all gone from the grounds.

The double doors to the school burst open and Jack and Maddie came rushing onto the grounds, "Hang on kids were here to…" Agent Z pushed his way between them, a phone clenched in his hands.

"Where'd they kids go?" Jack asked Maddie as Agent Z called his boss.

"I don't know. But we're going to find out." Maddie's voice was hard; she would do anything to get her baby boy back.

 **August 25** **th** **, 2015**

 **Monday**

 **Casper High: Outside quad**

 **11:50 a.m.**

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Thanks so much for reading this chapter! I hope I have you all on the edge of your seats. Do I? I hope so. Well, even if I don't I hope you liked the chapter!

If anybody can tell me who Chaser looks like and from what T.V. show's character he's similar too, I'll write a short story based on what they PM me. Only the first person though!

Would love to hear what you have to say! See you next week!


	5. Remote Controlled

Hey guys! Thank you so much for the reviews! I really appreciate them! This chapter is dedicated to those who reviewed: **ShinyMudkipGal, CaptainDorito, Great, Emily E, DannyPhantomFanGirl1, The Bloodless** and **ShadowDragon357**.

 **ShadowDragon357:** I totally agree with what you said about Trump and Vlad!

Anyway, the person who got the answer right first was **CaptainDorito!** You're right i did base Chaser off Control Freak from the Teen Titans. (I do not own him in anyway! Sorry Disclaimer needed to be put in lol). I'm giving you a week to send me a prompt for a short story you might want to see. PM when you can and i'll give it my best shot!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom. I also do not own the lyrics by the Imagine Dragons song Polaroid.

* * *

 **I'm a midnight talker**

 **Oh I'm an alley walker**

 **I'm a day late two face**

 **I'm a burn out quick pace**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Remote Controlled**

 **Word count: 4,815**

 **10/11/15**

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 **August 25** **th** **, 2015**

 **Monday**

 **Unknown**

 **Unknown**

When the bright light cleared from Danny's eyes he realized he was no longer standing in the quad of the school. He was currently standing in a living room that looked awfully familiar. There was a white couch and a coffee table with two doors on opposite sides of the T.V. that he thought led to bedrooms. He turned around to see a kitchen and more people appearing. As soon as the others became clear he realized exactly where he was: The T.V. Show Friends.

Monica, Chandler, Joey, Phoebe and Rachel stood scattered about the kitchen and living room. He looked down at himself to see he was wearing a pair of khaki pants and a green sweater, and realized he was made to play Ross. "You have got to be kidding me."

Everyone was looking around at each other unsure of what they were supposed to do so Danny decided to take charge. "Okay who's who?"

"I'm Sam." The character Rachel said, stepping forward.

"Sam Manson?" Danny asked, he wanted to make sure he had the right Sam.

"Yeah. Who are you?" she asked her eyebrows furrowing.

"It's me, Danny." He smiled and ran over to her giving her a hug. The Chandler character suddenly burst out laughing.

Sam and Danny let go of one another to glare at Chandler. "Tucker." They both said.

"Yeah!" He breathed between his laughs and came over hugging his two best friends. "Oh I can't believe you guys are Ross and Rachel!"

"Shut up!" the both yelled at him their faces pink from embarrassment. "Okay, who's everybody else?"

"I can't believe I'm Monica. I wanted to be Rachel." The Monica complained.

"Paulina?" The Joey character asked, "It's me, Dash."

Paulina as Monica squealed and jumped on Dash as Joey, giving him a huge hug.

"I can't believe I'm Phoebe. Shouldn't the vegetarian be the vegetarian on the show?" The Phoebe character said crossing her arms across her chest and pursed her lips. "I'm Valerie by the way."

"Okay, then." Danny sighed before Sam could remark on Valerie's comment and ran his fingers through his hair. Except he only got partway through his hair when they got stuck. He sighed again dropping his hand; he needed to remember he had Ross's hair at the moment. "What are we supposed to do?" He looked over at Sam and Tucker – who had finally stopped laughing when he realized that his significant other in the show was Paulina – but they only shook their heads.

"Are we supposed to act like our characters?" Valerie thought out loud. "Wouldn't that semi-explain why we're standing in Monica and Rachel's apartment?"

"Well they're like fictional characters from a T.V. show; we can't just act like them." Paulina sneered, which looked odd coming off Monica's face. "How did we get in here anyway?" She questioned looking around the place.

"Chaser hit some button on his remote and we ended up here." Danny responded. "But I think Valerie is right, maybe if we act out our characters we'll be released from this different reality."

"What? Just do it without a script? That's the stupidest idea Fentoad and when we get out of here and you look like yourself I'll hit you for being so stupid."

"Wow Dash, way to keep up the mood." Sam rolled her eyes.

Danny laughed which made the others look at him as if he had grown two heads – which had in fact happened when he was trying to learn duplication. "Sorry, but Sam your eye roll fits Rachel's perfectly."

"I am _not_ Rachel." She demanded, her jaw tightening.

"Uh-huh, sure Sam." Tucker chuckled, but backed up quickly when Sam tried to go after him.

"Calm down." Danny grabbed her arm, holding her back from pummeling their best friend. "We're never gonna figure this out if we keep antagonizing each other about what character we are."

"And who put you in charge, Fentino?" Dash demanded standing to his full height and crossed his arms.

"By all means Dash if you have a better plan than mine and Danny's, go for it. We would all love to hear it." Valerie said coming to stand next to Danny and Sam. Though she didn't look as intimidating as she used to since she was now Phoebe.

The silence stretched on while Dash looked around the apartment trying to think of something else that would get them out of the apartment. And that's when he realized, "What about the doors? What if one of them's a portal?"

The group stared at him as they had done to Danny earlier. "Actually that's not a bad thought." Tucker amended.

"Everyone check the doors." Danny commanded rushing to the bathroom door while everyone went to check all the others. Sadly though none of them found anything. They all went back to standing around in the kitchen contemplating what to do.

"Hey!" Paulina squealed, pointing to the windows, "Isn't that Chaser?"

Everyone whipped around to see Chaser sitting on the edge of patio. His eyes went wide when he realized that he had been spotted.

"Get him!" Dash yelled and they all rushed to the side window. Except they all got stuck as each person tried to through at once.

Chaser got down from the edge of the patio and now stood in front of the group chuckling. "Oh you guys are playing the six perfectly right now!" He chuckled again, "I think I'll just sit here and watch you try and get out here." He floated into the air, sat Indian style and a bag of popcorn popped into his hand which he immediately began to munch on.

Danny grabbed hold of Sam and Tucker – he had to double check because Rachel and Chandler felt much different than they did – and hoped that his ghost powers were still intact. He focused on turning his body intangible and instantly felt the change over his body. He smiled to himself pushing the power out to Sam and Tucker and pulled them from the crowded window and onto the patio.

Except instead of landing on the patio they fell through the concrete patio. A bright white light surrounded them again making them cover their eyes. When the light disappeared Danny and the trio felt that they were yet again standing on solid ground and they opened their eyes.

They were standing in a school hallway – definitely not Casper High's – and most of the lights were off. Danny was still holding onto Sam and Tucker's arms and when he looked down he was confused by who he was looking at. Sam looked down at herself but was unable to figure out who she was by looking at her clothing and current surroundings. Tucker was having the same problem as his best friends.

Sam looked over at Danny and Tucker and gasped when she realized who they were. "You have got to be kidding me."

"What?" The boys asked frantically.

"We're in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The T.V. Show not the movie."

"Mean that vampire show you made us binge watch when you got the DVD's for Christmas two years ago?" Tucker whined.

Before Sam could respond she was interrupted by another blinding white light and three other people appearing in the school hallway. "Let me guess: Paulina, Valerie and Dash?"

"Sam?" A dark haired, dark eyed but pale girl asked that Sam immediately knew was Faith from the show.

"Valerie?" The Faith character nodded.

"Are we in Buffy the Vampire slayer?" Valerie as Faith asked. "Because you look exactly like Buffy."

"What! I don't know how to kill vampires!" Sam guessed that the red head who looked like Willow was Paulina.

Sam decided to ignore her, "So I'm Buffy? Valerie is Faith." She looked at Danny and Tucker again. "Danny you're Xander, which is really weird. Tucker you're Giles. Paulina is apparently Willow." She shuddered, "And Dash… of my fucking god. You're Angel? Ew!" She felt a stronger shudder go through her.

Valerie snorted in amusement along with Tucker and Danny who each received glares from the Goth girl.

"Hey, wait." Valerie's brows furrowed, "How'd you guys get passed the window?" She was curious because they were really stuck and she could barely move. It was a true wonder how the trio had gotten out.

"Uh, I just pulled Tucker and Sam with me really hard and we fell through the window." Danny shrugged. "I don't know maybe Chaser was pulling a trick or something." The Trio knew that was a stupid excuse but Sam and Tucker couldn't exactly think of anything else than what Danny had said either.

Valerie pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. Sam thought she looked perfect for the character of Faith. Valerie however, did not believe what they were saying but she kept it to herself knowing that there were other matters of utter importance.

"I don't want to fight vampires!" Paulina shouted again when no one listened to what she said.

The sounds of breaking glass and shattering as it hit the floor echoed down the hallway making the six look down the hallway and freeze. "Well Paulina," Valerie said looking down at her right hand as a stake appeared. "You're going to have to do something cause I think they're coming for us."

"Dash beat them up like you do to the nerds." Sam said glaring over her shoulder at the gorgeous character of Angel. She had to focus and remember that Dash was definitely in control of it.

"Does everybody have a stake?" Danny asked, one had appeared in his right hand just as it did with Valerie. In his left hand a cross and a bottle of holy water had appeared.

Everyone said that they had a stake. Paulina and Dash voicing their concerns that they didn't know how to fight these mythical creatures as pounding footsteps were heard coming their way. Dash, though nervous, wanted to be the first one to attack to prove that he was the leader. The others let him pass by them to stand in front of them, giving Danny a quick punch to the stomach as he did. Dash wanted to show the nerdy teen that he was still superior over him and that Danny had no idea what it was like to be a leader and that Dash knew best because he was on the field giving orders to his teammates.

Danny didn't care, he was used to this and he knew Dash was trying to show him that he was still the king of Casper High even if they were stuck in these T.V. shows with each other. He hated it, but he still had to play weak Fenton even in this reality.

When the first vampire appeared it ran towards Dash who immediately pulled back his arm and punched it in the face. The vampire flew back landing on the floor. "Cool! I did it!" He turned around smiling at them.

"Look ou…" The group shouted as the vampire was back up on its feet and had lunged at Dash's – Angel's – back, knocking him to the ground. Paulina rushed to help him but the trio and Valerie were now preoccupied by the 8 other vampires that had appeared.

"Remember, stab the stake through the heart. That's the only way to kill them." Sam commanded as she attacked her vampire. She was extremely happy she had taken those fighting classes in the Far Frozen and that she could practice them on ghosts. Except now it was vampires. She was a little stoked. She loved this kind of thing. Of course it was always worse experiencing it. The vampire she was fighting landed a hit to her face sending her into the wall but she was able to turn quickly against the wall with her stake poised and ready as the vampire rushed after her. He impaled himself on the stake, a shock look coming over his face before he turned to dust.

Danny had already killed his first vampire and was trying to kill his second one when Sam joined him. He saw a small smile on her face. He thought she fit the character of Buffy perfectly when she smiled like that.

Tucker was holding off on his own exceptionally well. But that only came to a shock to people who didn't know what he did with Danny, Sam and Jazz. Just because he acted like the super weak techno nerd didn't actually mean he was one. He trained with Danny and Sam, and he wasn't anywhere near their weight levels, he was a lot stronger and knew more fighting techniques than he did when he was fourteen.

Valerie had easily killed her first vampire like Sam and Danny had and was now on her second. She kept on eye on Dash and Paulina who were doing pretty well for not knowing anything about fighting. Well, Dash knew how to throw punches that was true. But this kind of fighting was way out of his league. Valerie was happy that she had her black belt in karate and that she had ghost fighting to keep herself in shape because she had no idea what would have happened if she was more like Paulina.

Soon the fight was over and nothing but dust littered the ground where the group had killed off all 9 vampires. Paulina was the first to speak once the aftermath was over.

"I never ever, ever, _ever_ want to do that again." She shuddered dropping her stake to the ground. She had only fought one vampire unlike the others but it was the worst thing she had done in her life up to this point in time. That was including the time she had toilet paper stuck to one of her heels when she came out of the bathroom at school sophomore year.

"I agree." Dash said reaching out and grabbing Paulina's hand, giving it a squeeze.

"Are you kidding!" A voice sounded from behind them. They all turned around to see Chaser with his remote in his hand, standing in the middle of the hallway a couple yards away from them. "That was so awesome! It was like you guys were really on the show!"

Sam who was the closest to Chaser took a couple of steps towards the ghost as he was fangirling over what they had done. She was waiting for the right moment to jump him and grab the remote.

"Why do you want us to go through these T.V. shows?" Danny asked. He figured he could stall and give Sam enough time to get close enough – he had seen her slowly stepping towards Chaser – for her to get the remote.

"Why else?" he shrugged, "Cause it's fun. Plus I got the famous Danny Phantom and how many people can say that!" He laughed.

"Danny Phantom's in here too!" Paulina squealed excitedly. "Where? Is he in a different T.V. show?"

Chaser scoffed, "Man you humans are stupid." He crossed his arms over his chest, the remote sticking out. "He's right in this real…"

Sam took her door of opportunity and launched herself at the ghost who was not expecting such an attack. They fell to the ground and Sam shuddered as she smelt the stench of stale Doritos and beer coming from Chaser's body. She did her best to ignore the gross smell, grabbed the remote and pulled herself quickly off of Chaser's greasy body. Did this ghost not have a shower like all the others in the Ghost Zone? Or did he just not care?

"I got it!" She ran back to the group trying to see what button it was to make things go back to normal. But none of the buttons that filled the remote had labels. "Which button is it?" She looked back at Chaser who was brushing himself off.

He smiled smugly at her and the rest of the students still as their characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "I'm not tellin'."

Valerie had enough of this and stalked towards him. He looked up at her with fearful eyes as she grabbed his shoulders, swung him into the wall and held him there. "You're either going to tell us, or you'll be seeing the other side of death." Of course she didn't have her weapons with her but she could figure something out if it came down to it.

"It's the blue one! Three down from the big red button and four over to the right." He shook as she continued to glare him down.

"Are you sure?" She narrowed her eyes and looked into his own and squeezed his arms tighter into his body and pushed him further back into the wall.

"Yes!" he squealed, afraid to look away from her.

"Push it, Sam." Valerie's glare never wavered.

"Here goes nothing." Sam let out a breath and pressed the small rectangular blue button.

The bright light lit up the hallway again blinding everyone. When their vision cleared they were standing on the grass that covered the quad behind the school as themselves. Danny saw that there were 15 GIW agents and his parents around the quad. They were all looking as more students appeared around the quad in small groups of five, four and six. When the lights finally stopped and the two teachers who had been on lunch duty, Mr. Lancer and Mrs. Creeton – the freshman physics teacher – appeared everyone began talking and trying to find Chaser.

"Hide the remote." Danny whispered to Sam. She looked down at herself trying to find a place to hide it but she couldn't figure out a spot. She looked at the boys and zeroed in on Tucker's cargo pants. They were always filled electronics; a remote wouldn't make them look weird.

She quickly reached down unbuttoning one and slipped the remote in and closed it a second before Paulina started shouting that the ghost was being held over here by Valerie.

Agent Z was the first to arrive over at their group with Maddie being a close second. "Alright, ghost we're taking you in."

"Yeah, I'm going to have to say a big fat _no_ to that." With a pop he changed into a Dalmatian puppy. He was able to slip from Valerie's hands and landed on the ground in half a second. In the next half second there was another pop and the Flash appeared. "See ya!" he gave a two finger salute and then he was gone, a streak of red being the only indication of which way he went, but was gone as soon as it had appeared.

Agent Z called out four agents to follow Chaser telling them that they had to catch him under whatever circumstances. While he gave these orders Maddie asked Danny, Sam and Tucker if they were okay. All three nodded; Maddie sighed in relief, gave Danny a quick kiss to the forehead and rushed back to Jack who was sitting at a table, telling him they needed to move it to catch the ghost before the GIW did.

Paulina and Dash moved away from the trio and Valerie finding Kwan, Star and the others in their group of friends and began exchanging stories.

Danny, Sam and Tuck were about to move away from Valerie when Agent Z distracted them by asking her,

"You've started looking for colleges correct?"

She nodded, "Yes, sir I have."

"You know catching that ghost like you did was an incredibly brave thing to do."

"Thank you, sir."

He pulled out a card from his breast pocket of his suit. It was plain white with GIW typed across the middle and Telephone number at the bottom. "I think you'd make the perfect GIW agent with the raw talent you have."

"Well it's not all raw," She blushed, but kept her face neutral, "I have a black belt in karate."

"Even better!" Agent Z smiled and handed her the card, "We offer full scholarships for anyone entering the program at your age. Fully paid, great education and you can be one of the top most paid government officials in the United States."

Valerie was speechless. Not have to worry about paying for college was something she only dreamed about now. And get paid to fight ghosts? What could be better? But she knew she would have to talk to her dad about it first. "Thank you." She smiled, "I'll think it over with my dad."

Agent Z squeezed her shoulder, "Take all the time you need, training can only begin once you've graduated high school." With another squeeze to Valerie's shoulder he walked off to join his fellow Guy's in White in assessing the student body to make sure there were no lasting affects to their bodies.

Valerie was too wrapped up to notice that the trio had walked off after her talk with Agent Z. They stood by one of the trees that decorated the quad and watched the agents flounce around.

"I knew that was coming." Danny eventually said. "I mean I didn't know when they would have caught her catching ghosts, but I knew they would see her and reel her into their schemes."

Sam sighed leaning her back against the tree; Tucker sat down by her feet and pulled out Carol, starting to add Chaser to their files. "I was too." She ran her fingers through her hair happy to have it back to its natural black color. Everyone thought she dyed it but in reality it was her mother that had been dying her hair red since she herself was a teenager. "The real concern here though, is how are we getting out of here with all the GIW's, to go save Chaser from being torn apart?"

"We're sneaking out. Agent Z was over here and well I think he'll believe we we're just stupid kids and left school grounds because we we're already 'checked out'."

"Plus school's going to be over in 10 minutes anyway." Tucker voiced from the ground, "Not like it would matter trying to go back to class. You know Principal Ishiyama always cancel's classes when there's a huge ghost attack."

"Since I can't go ghost we're going to have to sneak out old school."

"Ugh, I hate climbing that fence."

"Tucker, it's only 4 feet tall."

"So!" Tucker got up from the ground. "I still have to get over it."

"Yeah, you do have to get over it." Sam laughed when Tucker stuck his tongue out at her. "Come on, they're all preoccupied further up. Let's go." She began walking to the fence, the boys following. Danny made sure to keep watch behind them to see if any of the agents or teachers was watching them.

They were able to make it to the fence and Sam and Tucker had gotten over when they were caught.

"Hey! You children still need to get checked out!" They heard an Agent call out.

"Run." Danny smiled at them and they took off. He was right behind them placing one foot slightly in one of the rungs, and both hand grasped the top of the fence firmly. He kicked hard and pushed with his hands, vaulting his feet over the top of the fence and landed smoothly on the other side. He bolted after Sam and Tuck easily catching up to them as they made it to the parking lot. He looked behind them as they reached Sam's car to see two agents running towards them.

"Get in, idiot." Sam called as she started the car. Danny hopped in the backseat and shut the door as Sam peeled out of the parking lot.

By the time they were on the street all three of them had tears in their eyes from laughing so hard.

"Oh man, that was the most fun I've had all week!" Danny choked out between laughs.

"Totally!" Tucker agreed. Still laughing he pulled the remote from his pocket and began to look over it.

"Do you think you could track him with that?" Sam asked, breathing in deeply to control herself as she drove down the road.

"Maybe?"

"He's probably back in the park." Danny said having calmed down enough to speak almost normally. "That's where everyone else seems to like to hangout."

Sam changed course and headed for Amity Park's Park. When they got close enough they could see the Fenton Assault Vehicle parked along with two GIW white Chevrolet Malibu's, by the park. She decided to park a little ways away so as to not be noticed by them.

"Okay, I'm going to go in as Phantom to get Chaser. I'll let you know when I got him.

Sam and Tucker put their Fenton phones in their ears as Danny did. Bright white light filled the car as he changed into Phantom, grabbed the thermos from his backpack, happy that he had been smart enough to put it in Sam's car before he went off to fight Chaser earlier.

"Can I have his remote? I'm going to see if I can lure him in." Tucker passed back the remote, "I'll let you guys know if anything goes wrong." With that departing message he flew intangibly through the roof towards the center of the park.

He knew he was close when he heard loud arguing and could make out Maddie's voice. They were all surrounding the fountain where Chaser – in his natural form – was sitting on the ground close to a GIW agent in a net that looked ghost proof.

"We were the ones who shot it down! It's ours!" Maddie yelled at one of the agents. Jack stood to her side giving her silent support.

"We were the ones to actually catch the ghost. Therefore it belongs to the government now."

Danny rolled his eyes. He was still covered by the trees so he made a quick duplicate handing the other the thermos. He felt the small part of his mind that was in control of the duplicate come into play. He was extremely happy he had mastered having two other duplicates at a time, it made things like this that much easier.

He turned invisible and floated halfway to the ground where he shot an ice knife through the net cutting it in half. Of course this got the attention of the agents and his parents. He put up a shield around Chaser and turned visible.

"Come on. I'm the rescue team."

"Phantom!" All the ghost hunters shouted.

"Uh, yeah." He waved, "I live here remember?" He chuckled, quickly creating his own shield as they all shot at him. He looked down to the ground where Chaser had yet to move. "Move Chaser!" He yelled and made to move towards the woods.

"Coming!" Chaser called out flying up to join Danny; they were still being shot at by the GIW agents and Danny's parents.

"Turn invisible then fly into those trees. I'll meet you there." Danny said, dropped his shields and turned invisible. He saw Chaser do the same and was thankful that he hadn't hesitated.

He made it into the group of trees that was too small to be considered a 'wood'; looking behind him he saw that the ghost hunters had pulled out their tracking devices to try and find them. He had to be quicker than he thought, just because they were poor at capturing a ghost didn't mean that they couldn't find one.

Stopping when he was close to where his duplicate had hidden he became visible and called out to Chaser.

"I made it." He huffed becoming visible as well. Hands on his knees as he floated trying to catch the breath he no longer needed on this side of the ghost zone. "Thanks man, for the save back there."

Danny hated that he had to do this to him, but he knew if he didn't get him into the thermos he would be captured by the GIW again and he didn't want even his worst enemy – though he had thought about it with Vlad – to be subjected to their tortures.

"Yeah about that." He reached up to scratch the back of his head, "This isn't so much as me letting you go and giving back your remote, it's more of a… recapture." He held up the remote to keep Chaser's attention, who looked between it and Danny with wide eyes. "Sorry, dude." He flew to the side as he called his duplicate forward and opened the thermos, pressed the button and sucked Chaser in.

"No fair!" Chaser yelled until he was inside and the thermos was capped.

Danny became one again with his duplicate. He pressed his hand to the button on his Fenton Phone, "I got him."

 **August 25** **th** **, 2014**

 **Monday**

 **Amity Park, Park**

 **3:25 p.m.**

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Thanks so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Let me know what you thought and i'll see you next week.


	6. Breathe

Hey guys! Thanks for the 3 reviews from: **FireTechFiction** , **CaptainDorito** and **ShadowDragon357**. I appreciate everything you had to say!

This chapter has a bit of background from our favorite grandma! Grandma Ida Manson! who doesn't love her?! I know I do. :)

Anyway, hope you like this chapter! I know it's not as long as the other ones, but it's just as good. lol.

 **Disclaimer:** Do not own anything relating to Danny Phantom or Panic! At the Disco (the quote).

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 **Many things will change**

 **But the way I feel**

 **Will remain the same**

* * *

 **I Walk The Line: Breathe**

 **Word count: 2,324**

 **10/16/15**

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 **August 25** **th** **, 2014**

 **Monday**

 **Amity Park, Park**

 **3:35 p.m.**

After arriving back at Fenton Works the trio were able to go down to the lab without having to worry about Maddie and Jack. They figured that the elder Fenton's would be still searching for Danny and Chaser in the park and around the city, and then probably continue to argue with the GIW agents. After releasing Chaser back into the Ghost Zone and making sure the portal was locked up for sure they went in search for Jazz.

However their findings came up empty, except for a note they found taped to the TV:

Went out with a couple of friends be back late. Will miss dinner.

-Jazz

They decided to grab Danny's computer – one of Sam's older laptops - so they could add Chaser to the files. Danny left his parents a note and left to go to Sam's.

Her parents were out of town again and Sam knew her grandma loved having the boys over just as much as she did. Danny and Tucker loved grandma Ida just as if she was their own grandmother and even called her grandma – after Ida told them countless times to do so.

Ida was extremely excited to see them and was incredibly interested in the ghost attack at the school. She laughed along with the trio as they told her how they were able to leave the grounds and there were two agents who tried to catch them but were unable to do so. Ida would have had a different reaction if they had cut school while it was still in session. However she knew that she would have done the same thing when she was younger. Actually, she thought that her granddaughter and Danny and Tucker were very similar to her group of friends when she was a teenager in the 50s.

Sam was incredibly similar to her, always sticking to her guns no matter what and following her in eating vegetarian. Something she started in the late 70s – mainly because her husband had told her it was impossible. Tucker reminded her of two of her best friends – one who's still alive. They were remarkably smart and both were very optimistic and the jokers of the group. Her one friend was also incredibly geeky and had gotten picked on a lot. But her other best friend, Cal, he always made sure to take care of the bullies; he also made sure to always take care of the group. The way he cared about everyone reminded her so much of Danny and the way Danny is always so kind and also sarcastic.

As she watched the trio tell their tale of she noticed how close Sam and Danny sat on the couch. They seemed to be oblivious of their closeness, though Tucker was taking advantage as he had laid out on the couch placing his legs over the two. When they had gotten to telling her that Sam had been Rachel and Danny had been Ross she hoped that she was going to be told that they had finally told each other their feelings. But the two had only blushed bright red and tried to scoot away from each other, but were stopped by Tucker's legs. She was reminded of how she and Cal had acted before they told one another of their feelings for the other.

She and Cal had loved one another just as she knew that Sam and Danny love one another. Except her and Cal had confessed their feelings much sooner than Sam and Danny. She hoped they would have a happier ending than her and Cal did. Oh she loved her husband, it was a love that she had to grow into since it had been an arranged marriage; but Cal was still her true love even after he died fifteen years ago. She knew that if Danny and Sam ever admitted their feelings to one another she would make sure nothing would keep them apart unless it were to be themselves that drove them apart.

"So grandma, what are we going to have for dinner?" Sam asked, taking Ida away from her thoughts.

"I'm not sure yet, bubeleh." She got up from her chair and sat down in her scooter, her joints were aching too much today to walk around with her cane. "I'll see what we have. Anything you kids want specifically?"

"Nope." The trio said, chuckling at the fact they had said it simultaneously.

"We're going to go downstairs." Sam said and shoved Tucker's legs off of her before standing up.

"I'll call you up in a bit to help me make dinner." Ida said, smiling at the kids as they stood up as well and grabbed their back packs. They each gave her a kiss on the top of her head before heading for the basement door. She loved those kids.

* * *

 **August 29th, 2014**

 **Friday**

 **Fenton Household**

 **Morning**

The next three days passed without too much incident. Ghosts attacked mainly during school hours and Danny was able to go out and capture them all. He had to escape the GIW the entire time he was out but was able to make it back to school. The only ones who attacked were Skulker and Ember (odd), a dozen ghost animals, and Young Blood. Danny wasn't sure why the ghost attacks were so low but he wasn't too concerned because he was able to spend more time with Jazz.

They all hung out at the Fenton household, watching movies and playing games and telling old stories. They helped Jazz pack the rest of her things for college and made sure she had weapons packed just in case she ran across any ghosts.

Even Jack and Maddie were excited and were helping Jazz pack up with the rest of them. Maddie made dinner each night, and even though it wasn't up to the standards of Danny or Jazz they all enjoyed the burgers – veggie for Sam – and the spaghetti. On Thursday Jack took Jazz out for a last day of father/daughter time.

Once Friday hit it seemed to be the busiest day of the week for everyone. Jack spent the day cleaning up the lab and the house because the next day someone was coming from the government branch that held the GIW, Paranormal and Scientific research. They were going to make sure that Jack and Maddie would still be eligible for their next grant and to get their new blueprints for any working weapons. This is why Maddie took Jazz out shopping and got their nails done on Friday because they weren't able to take her down to St. Louis to help her settle in.

The trio had also been busy. In the morning Danny missed Homeroom and half of English because Klemper was out and when he finally got him to go back into the ghost zone to find friends he had to run from Maddie and Jazz. Though Jazz did everything in her power to make sure their mom didn't shoot Danny. Then just before lunch, the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady showed up. Apparently though they were on a date and she was showing him the school basement where she had tried to defeat Danny. Then Agent Z got word of them. Danny, Sam and Tucker had to distract him from chasing after them. At the same time Valerie had gotten wind and went after them as well. Danny sent a duplicate as Phantom to distract her knowing she would chase Phantom over any other ghost. The plan worked and the trio had been able to distract Agent Z well enough to capture the two ghosts.

Danny hadn't wanted to capture them but he told them that he'd let them out as soon as he was home as long as they promised to finish their date in the Zone and not come out for a couple of days at least. They promised and Danny had called back his duplicate. They got passes from Agent Z for gym, since they missed that as well, and received late passes to their next classes, government and mythology that read that they had been with Agent Z and were not to be considered tardy.

The trio was unsure how to feel about the passes. On one hand they had been excited because they didn't have to worry about being knocked down for their missing class. But then they were worried because they were unsure if this meant that Agent Z would be watching them closer now that he knew they fought ghosts. Well he actually thought that they fought ghosts _sometimes_ and he made sure to tell them to call the GIW when they see any ghosts above level 3. They of course said they would, which satisfied Agent Z who went on his way to his classroom where he had a class waiting.

The rest of the school day passed uneventfully. In Ghost 101 they discussed different tactics that the trio and Agent Z could have used to capture the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady. Then discussed how peculiar it was that they would be working together when they had not been seen together before. When Star had suggested that maybe they had been out on a date Agent Z had shot down her idea.

"Ghosts come from ectoplasmic energies and are survived by post-human consciousness. Though they may remember what it was like to love or experience pain, or be happy; based on research ghosts do not 'date'. Ghosts use one another, their only goals influence on themselves and their obsessions. It has been noticed that most ghosts, meaning 99% of them, do not work well with other ectoplasmic entities."

The trio was fuming in the back because they knew that this wasn't true but knew it was better to not say anything because he wouldn't believe them anyway.

Once school was over they headed to Danny's house. Jazz was excited to see them because even though she loved her mom, she hadn't spent an entire day with her in a long time. It had taken a toll on her to hear her mom only being able talk about ghosts and how horrible they were and the weapons she and her dad were going to use to capture them. She knew that some of the weapons would be useful to the team but it took a lot of self-control not to tell her mom that not all ghosts weren't bad – especially Danny. When she had seen him earlier she didn't have time to distract their mom before she had started attacking him. Thankfully though, she was able to hinder her mom enough so Danny could get away.

When the trio told Jazz what had happened earlier at school with the GIW agent she was concerned that he would be watching them a lot more now. She was happy that they were on the same page as her, and she told them to be extra careful when they were out patrolling because Sam and Tucker could easily be stopped by them. Sam and Tucker said they would be watching out more now, but it wouldn't stop them from fighting ghosts.

Jazz decided that was enough hard talk for the night and they all made their way into the kitchen where Jazz was going to make dinner. Her mom had protested at first, but Jazz reassured her she wanted to cook a good meal for them on her last night because she wouldn't get to for a long time. Her mom had obliged and went down to the lab to make sure her dad had cleaned up correctly.

When dinner was over everyone stayed in the living room and watched T.V. Jazz noticed how uneasy being around their parents the whole night, was making Danny. She made sure to keep herself close to him, but in between their parents to hopefully make him feel better. Half way into the evening she noticed Danny's ghost sense go off, and she suggested that he and Sam and Tucker go upstairs to finish working on their homework. Danny sent her a silent 'thank you' and they went upstairs.

Jazz really wanted to go with them for one last go around, but she knew it would be easier to stay home and make sure her parents didn't check in and see Danny missing. When her parents went up to bed a couple hours later she told them she would tell Sam and Tucker when to go home. They each gave her a hug and told her to go to bed early.

She tried to go to bed early. She truly did. She had checked in to see if Danny was back yet, but he wasn't so she got ready for bed and set her timers on her phone to make sure she got up earlier than normal. She laid down and tried to fall asleep but her mind kept going a hundred miles an hour.

She was nervous and excited and slightly freaking out for tomorrow. She hadn't talked much with her roommates and she was nervous that they wouldn't all get along. She was excited because she was finally getting to go to college and a great one at that. She had been so scared that she wasn't going to get into such a great university. Then when she did she thought she was never going to get to go.

She sighed rubbing her temples. _I need to sleep. Go to sleep._ She tried clearing her mind again and focused on her breathing but all it got her was staring at the back of her eye lids for another 40 minutes. Giving up, she got out of bed and grabbed her laptop before heading downstairs.

She was halfway down the stairs when a scream pierced the air.

 **August 30** **th** **, 2014**

 **Saturday (Friday night)**

 **Fenton household**

 **1:53 a.m.**

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Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought and i'll see you all next week.


	7. A Phone Call Away

Hey guys! So I want to thank my only 3 reviewers to this story I received from last chapter: _CaptainDorito_ (Thank you so much I always love seeing your reviews!) **,** _Great (Anonymous), Mimi1012._

 ****Important Announcement!****

 **So I know that I'm getting further into this story and all that, But even though I've had this story planned out I really love to hear what you guys all have to say. I'm being serious. Your feedback helps my own writing skills. I hope to be writing novels (well I am right now but beside the point) and what not when I'm out of College and anything you guys say really helps me! Not just for this story but my future writings. Like if you think the chapters are too long or you want clarification better when POV's switch. Or you hate the time stamps in the story.**

 **Trust me i like to know these things.**

 **Please review. I love seeing this from a smiley or frowny face to full-fledged reviews going on for miles.**

 **Also if you're not a fan of something please let me know too. But don't say it in a mean nasty way – that's just rude.**

 ****Important announcement over!****

Anyway, the winner of the story was CaptainDorito and I'm currently working up a story with the ideas they gave me. I should have it up either with the next posting of this story or the chapter after. I'll let you guys know when I do post it, as I'll be posting it separately.

 **More notes at end of the story.**

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Danny Phantom. I do not own the song lyrics written below from the song 'Count on Me' by Whitney Houston and CeCe Winans.

* * *

 **Count on me through thick and thin**

 **A friendship that will never end**

 **When you are weak I will be strong**

 **Helping you to carry on**

 **Call on me, I will be there**

 **Don't be afraid**

 **Please believe me when I say**

 **Count on me**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: A Phone Call Away**

 **Word count: 4,312**

 **10/27/15**

* * *

 **August 30** **th** **, 2014**

 **Saturday (Friday night)**

 **Fenton household**

 **1:53 a.m.**

Jazz recognized the scream instantly. She truly did not want to be able to say that she could recognize his scream, but she was also happy that she did. Jazz darted back up the stairs and through Danny's closed door, making sure to close it quickly again behind her. He screamed again as Jazz turned on the light.

His eyes were squeezed shut, head thrown back into his pillow with sweat trickling down his face. His tanned hands fisted tightly to his blankets, his back arched again as another ear piercing scream ripped from his mouth. She rushed to his bed and gently ran her hands through his hair.

"Shh. Come on, Danny. Shh. Wake up, little brother." She reached out with her other hand and shook his shoulder slightly. His breath was becoming shorter and she knew she had to wake him before he screamed again.

"Shh. I'm here Danny. It's Jazz, please wake up. I'm here. Wake up." She shook him a little harder, "Please, it's Jazz, wake up."

Blue eyes shot open, and Jazz could see the fear that held him; a gasp escaped his mouth. "Shh, shh, shh. I'm here. I'm right here. Breathe Danny."

Danny's ocean eyes locked with her own and she made sure she wore a reassuring smile, "Jazz?" his voice croaked from his screams.

"It's me." She nodded sitting down on the edge of his bed. "Breathe for me Danny. In through your nose, out through your mouth." He took a shaky breath in and out. "Again, in through your nose, out through your mouth." He did as she said and she untangled her fingers from his hair and uncurled his fingers from his bed sheets. "Again."

It took a couple more minutes until Danny was able to breathe regularly. She kept a hold of one of his hands, and rubbed his shoulder with the other. She hated seeing her brother like this. She hated that she couldn't do anything to take away his pain. Her talks only helped so much and it wasn't as though she could send him to someone to talk about what has happened. Their family was all that he had to confide in about these matters.

"I'm sorry I woke you." Danny finally said, taking Jazz out of her thoughts. Danny had sat up and was leaning back against his pillow. He looked extremely disappointed at having disturbed her sleep.

"No." She shook her head frantically, grabbing hold of both of his hands. "You didn't wake me up. I was having trouble sleeping actually." She reassured him giving him a warm smile and a squeeze to both hands.

"You couldn't sleep?" Danny's brows furrowed, "What's wrong?" his sorrowful look changed instantly to one of concern.

"Nothing, really." She wasn't concerned with herself at the moment; she wanted to make sure Danny was okay.

"Are you nervous about tomorrow?"

She knew she couldn't lie to him when he looked at her so wide-eyed. She knew she was older than him, but the way he looked now-a-days and the way he's matured sometimes she could have sworn he was the older child. Especially considering he now stood almost a head taller than her. But in these moments where she could see the vulnerability in his eyes, she was reminded how young he truly was.

"Yes, I'm nervous." She admitted, "But it's nothing that can't be handled." She squeezed his hands again. "Nervousness is only an anxiety…"

"…reaction to a stressful situation." Danny finished for her. She shot him a weak glare that made him chuckle. "Like you said, it's normal to be nervous." He shrugged.

"First of all, _you_ said it." He smiled and scrunched his nose up at her, making a face. "And yes, it is normal to be nervous. I just don't like the fact that I can't sleep because of it." She frowned. Of course when she and the others had to be up early and drive three hours and move into her dorm, she wouldn't be able to fall asleep.

Danny gave her a small smile, "Though it's normal to be nervous, you have nothing to be nervous about." He shifted on the bed, folding his legs under him. "You'll at least get along with one of your roommates, and if you don't you'll put them in their place anyway." She chuckled, that was true. "You'll get to go out and do what you really want to do. You're going to be surrounded by so many people trying to achieve their dreams that you're going to fit right in." He always knew what to say to make her feel better. "Plus, you won't have to worry about ghosts attacking and getting in the way of your study time."

She frowned at that, "You know I'll only be a phone call and three hours away if anything does happen. And I want to know if anything big happens. Always."

"No way." He shook his head, "I'm not going to disrupt you at college. You're not going to miss anything because of me and the other ghosts."

She rolled her eyes at him, "How could you think I'd do something like that? You're my little brother, I'm going to protect you no matter what." She leaned forward and pulled him into a tight hug. "I won't be missing anything because of you. You can't get rid of me that easily."

"Darn, I thought for sure that would work." She felt the rumbling of his chest as he chuckled.

"Definitely not. You're stuck with me forever and ever."

He hugged her tighter and she realized that those words meant more than just about her leaving school. He had dreamed about the alternate universe again, she had hoped it was a different nightmare that had plagued him.

"I'm going to miss you." His voice barely rose above a whisper.

"I'm going to miss you too." And she would. These past two years they had grown much closer than when they were little. Now she was leaving and she didn't want to lose that closeness with him.

"I'm just a phone call away." He nodded his head and it rubbed against her shoulder. She knew he understood she was talking about nights like these where he had the nightmares. He probably wouldn't call her first, but she knew that he did want to talk it out to her on most nights.

He pulled away from the hug, but he kept his hands on her upper back. She kept her own on his shoulders as he looked at her with concern again.

"What am I going to do if Maddie and Jack hear me?"

She pursed her lips at the use of her parent's names. She understood why Danny separated himself from them, she truly did. But she couldn't find it in her heart to do that as well. She still considered them her mother and father figures. Yes, she didn't like what they were doing to the ghosts and chasing Danny down, but they did try at times to make sure to be parents to her and Danny. She still wasn't sure how she felt on the topic of Danny calling their mom and dad by their names constantly – not that that wasn't untypically for kids their age – but she didn't want to take that up to him at the moment.

"You're going to have to lie. Say you had a nightmare about the GIW taking them away or something."

"You're telling me to lie? You?" Danny smiled.

She rolled her eyes again, "Shut up. But that'll be the quickest way to get them off your back. Otherwise you'll have to tell them that you got freaked out by a ghost earlier that day. Or better yet, tell them you dreamed that they shut down NASA for good."

His eyes went wide, "What? That's horrible! How could you say that to me?" He cried closing his eyes and tossing his head back, his right hand going to his forehead.

She slapped him lightly on the arm, "Stop being so dramatic."

He looked at her with a fake sad look, "But NASA." She gave him a pointed look. "Okay, okay." He pulled her in again for another hug.

"I love you, Danny."

"Love you too, Jazz." Suddenly she felt a yawn pull from her mouth. "I guess you're tired now."

She smiled and shook her head. "Yeah I guess I am." She pulled back from the hug all the way, dropping her hands back into her lap. "You going to go back to sleep?"

He glanced to his left. Jazz followed his gaze to see that the clock on his nightstand read: 2:09 a.m. They had to leave in 5 hours. She wanted to get there early so they could miss all the crazy hustle and bustle of moving in with so many students.

"Eh, I might go out for a fly. You're driving anyway; I could always sleep in the car."

"That's only if a ghost attacks, mister."

He snapped his fingers, swinging his hand up a little at the same time. "Well, I tried my best. I'll see you in the morning, okay?"

"I'll come wake you up."

"Yeah, I don't think I'm going to hear my alarms." He chuckled.

"Good night, Danny." She leaned up and kissed his forehead before getting off the bed and grabbing her laptop from his desk.

"Night."

* * *

 **August 30** **th** **, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **Fenton household**

 **7:18 a.m.**

"Jeez, Jazz how much stuff do you need?" Tucker groaned as he loaded another box into Sam's car.

"This coming from the Techno Geek that carries around an extra ten pounds of gadgets." Jazz shot back, shoving a tub of books into Sam's backseat. Her car was already filled up – it was so small that only so many boxes and other things fit.

"Hey, I'll have you know that everything is down to two things now." Tucker brushed off his hands and made room for Sam who was carrying another box. "Carol, my PDA and Crystal my Iphone."

"At least I don't name my electronics." She pulled herself out of the car and looked at her friend.

"Please, you name your books."

"Oh my gods!" Sam exclaimed turning to glare at the two after she moved around her small box to fit in the trunk. "It's seven in the morning. Some of us are not awake enough to deal with your arguing." She rubbed her temples. "I haven't even had my morning tea yet."

"Sorry, Sam." The two apologized.

Danny came through the front door and walked down the front steps carrying a box. Jack and Maddie following him; Jack was carrying a box as well.

"This is the last of em, Jazzypants." Jack announced as he and Danny placed both boxes in Sam's backseat.

"Sam, your tea is in the kitchen." Maddie said, walking over to her daughter.

"Thanks." Sam quickly headed inside to grab it.

"You have everything, sweetheart?" Maddie asked, grabbing Jazz into a hug.

"Yeah. Everything's loaded." She squeezed her mom tightly before letting go. She wanted to make this as quick and painless as possible. If she kept saying good-bye to her mom she would start tearing up.

"I wish we were going with you kids." Jack said, pulling Jazz into a hug as well.

"I know. But you need to be here. You have to get your grants." She might understand that they needed to stay home, but she truly wanted her parents to help her move in on this day with the others. It hurt a little, but she still had her friends and Danny coming.

"We love you so much; you're going to knock 'em dead." Jack whispered into her ear.

"I love you too, dad." She gave him one more big squeeze before pulling back.

"You promise to call as soon as you make it to the campus?" Maddie tucked a strand of her Jazz's hair behind her ear.

"Of course. And I'll call you when everything is set up." Maddie smiled at her daughter and pulled her into another hug.

They held onto each other for a couple more seconds before Maddie nodded her head and pulled away, "Alright then." She turned towards Danny and Tucker, "And you boys, when you leave St. Louis I want you to call. If you don't reach us, leave a message okay?"

"We will." Danny agreed.

"Don't worry Mrs. Fenton, I'm keeping my grandma informed as well." Sam reassured her coming down the stairs with her tea in hand.

"Good." Maddie crossed her arms and looked at all the kids. She couldn't believe her little girl was going off to college already. It seemed as if it had just been yesterday that Jazz was a little girl and would bring her books from their own bookshelves that delved into science theories and ask her to read them to her. She was going to miss her little girl so much. But Maddie knew she had to let her go. Jazz would be back. She didn't know if she'd be able to do this again.

She looked to Danny and realized there was another two years until he would be off to college. Sure his grades weren't that good at the moment, but she knew he could get them up. She began choking up at the thought of her little boy leaving the nest as well. She wished she could spend more time with him now but he kept pushing away from her and Jack. Regrettably she let it happen and now she wasn't sure how to get that closeness back with him.

"Mom, we really need to get on the road now." Jazz interrupted her inner thoughts. She mentally shook her head; those thoughts could be brought up later.

"Alright." She smiled. "Be safe."

"By mom." Jazz waved and got into her car, Danny followed suit. Tucker and Sam got into her car. Jack wrapped his arm around her waist and began waving towards the kids.

Maddie watched as Jazz waved back at them, she was slightly disappointed that Danny hadn't waved back. She pulled out of the driveway first, Sam followed suit and drove down the street. They waited until their cars were gone from sight before either of them spoke.

"She'll be okay, Mads."

"I know." She sighed and turned to look up at him. "I'm just going to miss her."

"Me too." Jack gave her a small smile. "Come on," he leaned down and kissed her on her forehead. "We still have to make sure everything's out and organized for Dr. Phenway."

* * *

 **August 30** **th** **, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **Jazz's Dorm Room (McHenry Hall)**

 **7:45 p.m.**

"Danny, I'll be fine." Jazz reassured him for what seemed the thousandth time.

"I know, I know." Danny held his hands up, palms facing her, "But I just wanna make sure everything is good to go for you."

He was currently going over the ecto-weapons that they made sure she had just in case something happened. Jazz also made sure she packed the Fenton Virtual Reality Helmet, gloves and boots because it would help keep up not only her training, but her workouts. She didn't think that her parents would miss it because they had made two more for the family to use.

Jazz folded her arms across her chest and rolled her eyes, "You've already tested them four times. They work just fine."

"Well I haven't checked the Porta Portal." He pointed out giving her a glare. Sam and Tucker groaned from where they sat on Jazz's bed where they were thumb wrestling.

"Danny." Sam rolled her head over to look at her best friend leaving the game to Tucker. Her and Tucker had already said their good-bye's to Jazz and wanted to go home.

"What?" he didn't take his eyes off the ecto-gun.

"Stop stalling. You're gonna see Jazz again soon."

"But…" He finally looked up to meet Sam's eyes. They held gazes for a few seconds almost as if they were having a silent conversation. Danny sighed and Sam smiled sitting up from the bed. "Okay."

He put the weapon away and got up from the floor. "Sam's right, it's getting late and we still have to drive three hours back home."

Jazz smiled at him and held out her arms. Danny instantly crushed her to him. "Remember what I said last night." Jazz whispered. Not because she didn't want Sam and Tucker to hear, but because she felt if she spoke any louder she would break the moment.

Danny nodded, "You remember what I said too."

"Of course."

They held onto each other a little longer before Danny pulled away. "Alright then." He huffed out a sigh. "I'll text you when we get home, okay?"

"Good." Jazz turned to Sam, "Don't speed; I don't need to hear you got a ticket."

Sam only rolled her eyes, "I won't get a ticket."

Jazz gave her a pointed look before pulling her into one more hug, "Take care of them."

"I will."

"Oh god no." Tucker stood up, shaking his head. "You want Sam to babysit us? That is going to end in horrible, horrible pain."

Jazz laughed, pulling away from Sam, "Come here."

"I'm going to miss you too, Jazz." Tucker mumbled through her hair. "But please for all that is good and meaty in the world do not make Sam in charge of us."

"Be nice to her!" Jazz pulled away and smacked him hard on the shoulder.

"I am being nice!"

She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at him, a look that they all called her 'mom' look.

"Fine." He rolled his eyes and stepped further away from her.

"Alright, you all good?" Danny asked. "You don't need anything else, you have everything set up the way you want it?"

"Yes, I do. Now you guys need to get going. You still have to patrol tonight." Jazz encouraged.

She opened her bedroom door and waited for the three of them to file out. They all made their way down the three flights of stairs to the main floor and headed outside to the parking lot that was shared between the other dorms in the area. They all said one last good-bye before the trio loaded up and headed out, back towards Amity Park. They were across the Mississippi river and well into Illinois before anyone said anything.

"I knew that this day would come, I just never knew that it would have been today." Danny voiced from the backseat.

"Me either." Tucker said.

"Jazz has always been around; it's hard to imagine her not being at home." Sam told them, "I know that we had trouble getting along until the end of freshman year, but she was always a constant around us."

"I hope she'll be okay." Danny sighed, running his fingers through his hair. "I mean, it's not that I know she can't handle herself, but…"

"You just have to trust that she'll be okay." Sam said, taking the exit towards Springfield.

"I just want to be there to make sure she's okay though. She doesn't have anyone as back up."

"She's gonna be fine, dude. It's a safe campus and her dorm doors can only be accessed if you live there with their ID cards, there's security walking around 24/7. She has back up, just not in the way you're thinking."

Danny rested his head against the window. "She told me last night that she was nervous about today. And I told her that there was nothing to be nervous about, that she would be fine, but what if she's not? Jazz usually isn't overly nervous."

"No, but this is a big step in her life and if she wasn't nervous then I would think that there was something wrong with her." Sam looked into the rear-view mirror and saw how down Danny looked. She reached back with her right hand and rested it on his left knee. "She's a big girl Danny."

Danny only nodded but didn't respond. He understood that they were only trying to make him feel better but he felt that it only made him worry more. It was something that he would have to deal with on his own. Knowing that Jazz was at college would just have to take time to sink in.

Of course now he needed to figure out a better way of making money so she could stay at the $65,000 a year University. It helped that her scholarship paid half of her tuition at $22,850 and the Financial Aid she was receiving would help with about $4,500, which equaled a total of $27,350. They needed to come up with another $37,650 to pay for the rest of the year.

He had been saving up money since last year by selling things that were: seen, touched, worn, read, and used by 'Danny Phantom', to the crazy fans like Paulina and Dash. So far he had saved up $20,000 but he was running out of things that he could sell on EBay. He knew that Tucker had saved up close to $5,000 by fixing people's computers over the summer; the rest of it he was saving for himself for emergencies. He said that he would try and keep up the little business over school, but so far that wasn't happening the way he had hoped – though it _was_ only the beginning weeks of school.

Sam was another story completely. She told them all that she would pay the difference because her parents wouldn't even notice that the money was gone. Jazz told her not to worry about it and to keep her parents money. But Sam insisted that her Grandma already wrote out a check for $15,000 and she didn't want anything back.

Jazz actually told them all to keep their money but of course none of them were going to listen – Danny especially. They could pay for her whole first year and the loans, but she was being too stubborn. He knew that their parents were going to pay as much as they could towards Jazz's college but he also knew that her college funds had been almost wiped clean. She had many qualms about accepting that money so he was trying to figure out what to do.

If Jazz wouldn't let them give her the money, he needed to figure a way to get the money paid to the school. If he couldn't go to a top-notch university he was going to make damn well sure that his sister could. He just had to do it before she figured it out.

He rubbed his temples letting out an annoyed sigh. He wanted to say that he really hated that he and the others hadn't had the same high school teenage gallantry experience that other students their age were having. But that wasn't something he could say because he knew that what had happened in his life was something he wouldn't trade for the world. He had learned that lesson through many different alternate realities lived by him and the others but was always reversed by Clockwork.

The time passed slowly as they made the rest of the journey back to Amity Park. They stopped at Sam and Tucker's houses respectively to check in with their parents and told them that they were going to spend the night at Danny's. When they reached Fenton Works they found the place to be in complete darkness; after checking upstairs Danny informed them that his parents had already turned in for the night.

With that information, they gathered a few weapons from the lab and the new Specter Scooters that Maddie had designed after the Specter Speeder, before heading out on patrol at 12 a.m.

The night was a slow one and after not seeing any ghosts for a half hour Danny decided to call it a night at 2:00 a.m.

"Thank god there are no more ghosts tonight." Tucker groaned as he met up with Sam on Cherry Street. "I'm wiped."

Sam let out a large yawn, Tucker yawned as soon as she was done. "I know what you mean. I can't wait to crawl into bed."

"Who knew moving little college things was going to be that tough." Danny chuckled through the Fenton Phones, yawning as well. He met up with his best friends. "I don't think I could take on anoth…" at that moment his ghost sense went off. "You have got to be effing kidding me." He groaned, Sam and Tucker joining him.

"Why don't you guys go on ahead back." Danny rubbed his eyes, and then began looking around the area to find the ghost.

"No. We'll help find them. It'll be quicker if we all are working to find them." Tucker told Danny. He knew if he left it open to suggestion, Danny would push harder for them to leave, but Tucker was having none of that.

"Guys I see her!" Sam exclaimed. The ghost of a young woman was flying rapidly toward them, fear etched on her face. "Wait!" She yelled as she saw Danny's hand light up with an ecto-blast. "I recognize her!"

Danny's blast fizzled out in his hand as he stopped flying to look at Sam, "What?"

Sam stopped the bike, as well as Tucker. "She's one of Dora's personal servants, Belinda."

"Sir Phantom, Lady Manson, Sir Foley!" Belinda bowed her head and curtsied as she arrived in front of them before looking up at them; fear clear in her eyes. "Please you must help Princess Dora. The kingdom is under attack by her brother, Aragon!"

 **August 31** **st** **, 2014**

 **Sunday (Saturday night)**

 **Cherry St. Amity Park, Illinois**

 **2:05 a.m.**

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So i just want to say that i'm so sorry that I didn't update on Sunday! i totally had a busy weekend and this took the backburner to look over and find song lyrics. But i have it here and i'll make sure to get Chapter 8 up this Sunday.

Thank you guys so much! I love all of my followers and my reviewers and i would love to hear from more of you!

Also i know that this week saturday is Halloween! Who is excited?! cuz i am! I'm going out with my best friend and we're dressing up as Dean and Cas from Supernatural. I'm so excited. i just wanted to tell all of you to be careful out there! And if you go trick-or-treating or to a party don't go by yourself! Also be careful driving, cause trust me the crazies (lol), crazy drivers will be out. I hope you all have a safe and scary Halloween! and get lots of candy!


	8. Phoenix

Hey guys! So just like i said last time i am updating on time! Wahoo! lol

Anyway i want to thank my two reviewers: **Great** and **CaptainDorito**. Thank you both so much for what you had to say and being my most constant reviewers! i love hearing from both of you so much, it means a lot to me :)

Sadly i'm still working on the story for **CaptainDorito**. I was in a car accident on friday and it was pretty bad. Thankfully though i had this chapter all finished up on Thursday i was just trying to figure out the song quote. Speaking of the song quote if it doesn't make sense to you right now, don't worry! It alludes to something later on!

I hope you like this chapter. I tried my best on the fight scene and it's something i'm still working on. if you have any words of advice let me know!

 *****Also translations are at the end of the chapter!*****

Disclaimer: I sadly don't own Danny Phantom or the song Emperor's New Clothes by Panic! At the Disco

* * *

 **Welcome to the end of eras**

 **Ice has melted back to life**

 **Done my time and served my sentence**

 **Dress me up and watch me die**

 **If it feels good, tastes good it must be mine**

 **Dynasty decapitated**

 **You just might see a ghost tonight**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Phoenix**

 **Word count: 3,294**

 **11/1/15**

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 **August 31** **st** **, 2014**

 **Sunday (Saturday night)**

 **Cherry St. Amity Park, Illinois**

 **2:05 a.m.**

"When was the attack?" Danny asked, switching on his serious face and began flying fast towards his house. Sam and Tucker followed suit, pushing the Specter Scooters to their max speed to make it the 5 blocks to the house.

"An hour or so ago." Belinda voiced frantically. "Princess Dora ordered me to go to you for help when she started losing the battle. I made my way here quickly."

"Where are the Observants?" Sam asked, but because the two of them were flying so high Belinda could not hear her. Danny asked the question for her, having heard it through the Fenton Phones.

"They are nowhere to be found, Sir Phantom." The bright lights of the Fenton Works sign appeared in their vision making them fly faster. "I know that they do not like to act and have others do their work for them. I fear they will not arrive until the fight is over. Please, we must hurry." Belinda wrung her hands together as they entered the Fenton household and made their way down to the lab.

Sam and Tucker were a few minutes behind them. By the time they made it into the lab Danny was already loading weapons into the Specter Speeder. They grabbed the Fenton ghost peeler, the wraith wrangler (because the Fenton Fisher wouldn't be strong enough), the bazooka, and two double bladed ecto-swords. They made sure to bring the tougher weapons because they weren't sure how strong Aragon was at the time. They grabbed extra ectoplasmic attachments for the ecto-guns and then they were on their way to Dora's Kingdom.

As they got closer to the large island that held the Kingdom they could see a bright blue blaze taking over parts of the forest and the towns' area. Dora and Aragon were fighting in the fire around the forest. She was losing.

"Belinda, go back to the castle. Make sure everyone is down in the dungeons for safety, one of us will come get you all when it's safe."

"Good Luck, Sir Phantom." She bowed her head towards him and flew quickly towards the – thankfully – still standing, castle.

"Alright guys." Danny pressed the small button on his Fenton Phones to keep an open communication going. "Dora looks in bad shape so we're going to need to take Aragon's full focus away from her so she can recuperate." He landed by the entrance of the castle, Sam landed the Specter Speeder as well and got out with their weapons.

"Me and Tucker can distract him from the sides. We'll focus his attention on us and then you can sneak up from behind." Sam donned the body suit of the Fenton Peeler. "Plus I want to get a few hits in before we take him down."

Danny didn't want to argue with Sam that this wasn't the time for a couple revenge punches. It would be like the pot calling the kettle back. "Alright. You guys will distract him while I sneak up from behind. I'm going to be using my ice powers a lot, so watch out for that besides the fire."

"Tucker, I want you to try and use the wraith wrangler to wrap around Aragon's mouth. We need to stop that fire."

"Okay." Sam and Tucker nodded their heads at him in acknowledgement then made their way towards the two fighting dragons.

"Jtoeiber mih esweits, tozsegm rerewi wlien reihrrftg bmy thees wune Penerwg siedt." Aragon roared out in ghost speak. He swiped a large claw at Dora's face. She ducked out of the way, but was struck in the side as he quickly turned and slashed her with his tail.

"Oinn, diyo nbred natu ghoe bhank wmhi thr Observants. Diyo wlien reeul awgdir oinn."Dora growled, struggling back to her feet.

"Hey ugly!" Sam yelled, running in between the two ghost dragons.

"You!" Aragon breathed angrily, steam flowing out through his nose.

"Yeah me." Sam smirked, "Did you miss me hubby?" She shot him with the ghost peeler. Though it didn't peel the black and purple dragon skin completely away from Aragon's body, it took a nice size chunk out of his shoulder.

"I will end you!" He blew out a large jet of blue fire towards her and Tucker.

"No!" Dora yelled and quickly grabbed them in her claws, taking the brunt of the fire.

"Dora, go we'll hold him off." Danny rushed from behind Aragon hitting him in the back with a large spiked icicle. It imbedded itself into the back of Aragon's neck, but did not do as much damage as Danny was hoping it would. He flew around to them throwing up an ice shield as Aragon blew another round of blue fire at them.

"I am not leaving you to fight my brother." She tried to rise up again, but her legs gave out from beneath her.

"And you can't fight in your condition." Tucker told her taking a couple shots at Aragon's open mouth with his ecto-gun.

"I." Dora brought a paw up to the ground. "Am." She brought another paw up as Danny began firing ghost rays filled with ice at Aragon, distracting him from Dora. "Fine." She roared pushing herself up into a standing position. She picked Tucker up from the ground and placed him on her shoulder. Using his new vantage point to his advantage he began firing his weapons at Aragon with a better aim at him mouth.

"Danny!" Sam yelled out raising her arms as he passed over head blasting Aragon with a snowball straight into his mouth preventing him from firing. He wove around Aragon's head and made his way back to the ground. He grabbed her around the waist and flew high barely missing Aragon's claws.

Dora blew fire at her brother, hitting him in the face causing him to reel back in pain. "Diyo moc bglehrn hriee awymrin oinn."

While Dora and Tucker fought against Aragon's front, Danny and Sam flew over his back.

"Drop me between his shoulders. I'm going to try and impair his wings." Sam told Danny.

"Be careful." He placed her down on the back of Aragon's shoulders and she began working on taking out chunks of Aragon's scales. He roared and reared back blowing fire and trying to reach Sam with his claws but it was no use. Sam held on tight, digging her covered fingers into his peeling scales. It only made him fight harder.

Meanwhile, Tucker was trying to get the wraith wrangler around Aragon's mouth, but he was having trouble since his mouth wasn't anywhere close to closing and he kept moving at an alarming rate. "Danny, I need something that'll close his mouth again." He made sure to speak lowly so that Aragon could not hear him.

"Okay." Danny nodded, even though Tucker couldn't see it, after releasing a large ecto-blast at Aragon's wings. "Sam, try and get up to his head. I want you to try and take out one of his eyes."

"I'll try. But with the way he's moving there's no guarantee I'll make it up there." Sam groaned as she tried to hold on as Aragon moved about trying to attack Dora and Danny, but was failing at it not that there was more than one target.

"If you can instead, try and reach the amulet." Danny ducked quickly, but was hit in the back by Aragon's fire. "Shit."

"Danny!" He heard Sam and Tucker echo.

"I'm fine." He groaned straightening up again, thankfully out of reach from Aragon's tail. "Tucker get ready."

Danny didn't wait for conformation from him. He rose high in the air, and waited for Aragon to follow, but he stayed rooted to the ground, his wings flapping uselessly. Danny ginned; Sam had been able to disable his wings. With that terrific thought he turned and dove towards the evil dragon, charging up a frozen ball and surrounded it with ectoplasm. When he was 20 ft. away he threw it as hard as he could towards Aragon's open maw.

The blast reached Aragon just as he was about to breathe fire at Dora and Tucker. It blasted Aragon off his feet. Danny watched as Sam went airborne, both her screams and Aragon's roar filled the air. Tucker shot the wraith wrangler as soon as Aragon's mouth snapped shut at the intrusion in his mouth.

Danny flew as fast as he could towards Sam but she hit the ground with a sickening crunch before he could reach her. The armor retracted into its hand held device leaving an unprotected, unconscious Sam on the ground.

The super strength wire wrapped itself around Aragon's jaws. He tried to pry it off, rolling as he did, but it was no use. Danny created an ecto-shield around him and Sam to keep from getting hit by Aragon's tail, and crushed by his body.

"Tucker get the amulet!" he yelled trying to pick Sam up without getting hit by the raving evil ghost.

Dora blew out a round of blue fire halting Aragon's try for release from his imprisonment. She had heard what Danny had told Tucker and knew it was time to act; otherwise they might not get the chance to grab the amulet again. "When I get close enough, Tucker, jump from me and to my brother. There is a lock on the back of the Amulet. Unlatch it and he will turn back to human."

"You got it, Dora." Tucker nodded and held on as she stomped towards Aragon. He began to claw at the wire around his mouth again. He reached his tail around, smacking Dora and Tucker away in the process, and used the end spikes to cut through the wire.

As soon as it was free from his mouth and lying on the ground he let out a blast of fire, spraying everywhere he could reach. Dora was able to keep a hold of Tucker when they had been struck and shielded him with her wings. He wished he could have protected Dora instead because of how injured she already was, but he didn't have any powers to protect her.

As the fire descended upon them, Danny raised an ice shield and covered his body over Sam's seeing as they were still on the ground. The blue ghost fire burned rapidly through the shield, licking at his and Sam's bodies. "Aghh!" He yelled and sent out another barrier of ice behind him to cover them both, but it was no use. He had to keep Sam safe, though and focused hard on creating a solid barrier under him. When the direct hit of flames passed he rolled off Sam and performed the fireman's roll. He never realized that he would actually have to use that technique in his life. Thank gods for kindergarten.

After two quick rolls he stood up, made sure that Dora and Tucker were far enough away, sucked in a deep breath, closed his eyes and let out his ghostly wail. He poured all his energy it. He could feel his energy draining him, but he kept pushing knowing this was going to be the last chance they could really get. Warmth began to tingle in his stomach and he felt it travel up and down his body. When the warmth reached his head he knew that he had changed back, his wail lost most of its power. His eyes rolled back into his head and he promptly passed out on the dirt.

Aragon had been pushed back and had crashed through the blazing forest as Danny used his ghostly wail. Tucker and Dora watched from where they had landed earlier; they saw Aragon roar out, but it was drowned out by the wail. Debris was flying around like crazy and Tucker wasn't surprised as two large tree trunks hit Aragon in the face knocking him to the ground again.

When the ghostly wail stopped Tucker took off from Dora, ignoring her protests that she could get the amulet. He ran past his unconscious best friends and to Aragon. He used the chucks of scales missing from his body to haul himself onto the dragon's shoulders. He made his way to the back of the amulet, found the large clasp and opened it.

Aragon immediately transformed back into a human. Tucker though, unluckily was still atop Aragon and fell directly onto his ghostly body. Dora transformed back into her ghostly human body and began making her way over to him. She was limping heavily, blood running down from the top of her thigh and down her leg. She picked up the amulet while Tucker slowly got off Aragon, his body protesting in certain areas.

"Ugh, I never want to move again."

"Neither do I, Sir Foley." Dora showed a small smile to him before turning back to her unconscious brother. "I do hope the Observants arrive quickly."

"The fight's over with." Tucker struggled to his feet and reached for the Thermos. "I'm sure they'll be here shortly." He unscrewed the top and sucked in Aragon. "For now though, we need to get you, Danny and Sam taken care of."

"As well as stop the fires from spreading further." Dora changed back into her dragon form.

Tucker frowned. "Dora are you…"

"I will carry you three back to the castle then put out the fires. I have enough energy to do this."

"But…"

"I will be fine." She picked him up with her clawed foot, made her way to the unconscious forms of Danny and Sam. She made sure to pick them up gingerly, not wanting to disturb any injuries and made her way to the castle. She placed them just inside the large front doors before taking off again to put out the fires.

Tucker was instantly on the move. He left Danny and Sam where Dora had placed them and rushed through the halls before coming to a set of stairs that led down into the dungeons. He took the stairs as quick as he could, but it was difficult for him to see in the dimly lit area. Finally he made it to the bottom of the curved stairs where a wood door stood open. He could see ghost milling about, worried looks on their faces. Belinda was easy to spot as she stood closest to the door.

"Belinda!" He rushed forward gathering everyone's attention. "Aragon is taken care of, but we need the medical team."

"Yes, Sir Foley." She bowed, and turned towards the rest of the room. "All Healers, come with me."

Four ghosts made their way through the crowd. Tucker made his way back up the stairs, the others silently following him. When they reached the main foyer the four healers created stretchers out of ectoplasm underneath Danny and Sam and carried them off towards the medical wing in the castle.

"Go with them. If anything happens before we get there, come get me and Princess Dora." He made sure to use Dora's title since many of the servants and people looked down on them if they did not use her royal name. The only one who got away with it when other people were around was Danny.

"I will." She left quickly and disappeared around a corner.

Tucker ran back outside. He needed to get Dora inside and checked out. She exerted too much energy and Tucker wasn't sure how much she could spend without almost destroying herself. Thankfully though, he found her back in her humanoid ghost form speaking with the two Observants just across the moat.

"Hwi moc mih erBtdor efcpte? Diyo abrse aspubeld natu hbau raoozm aos sechuh aos Walker's Pgiasgn.

"Thass tii ruof rarewi natu docfbsen oinn. Sii hbau phpsenr. Rerewi wlien sbin tnke erisn bhank ruof mhfro qfbugi."

Tucker saw Dora fold her arms across her chest. She flinched from the burns on her arms and chest, but she shook that off as her facial features turned dark. "Therin hbau oinnn yneh sbin ean tprzaie?"

"Thr tprzaie hbau sbin stze ruof tzwoi woek fasrm yegtdrn. Hjwedhr, bweic fvas thees efcpte rerewi abrsc pduk ahvn eafrhy."

Dora's eyes narrowed as Tucker finally joined next to her. He made sure to stay quiet knowing that it was probably best considering he could only understand a few words. Walker, him, two and date.

"He mentioned a rising power." Tucker sighed happily as she spoke English. "Do you know anything of what or whom he was speaking about?"

The two Observants glanced at one another before the one on the right spoke, "Rerewi abrse afbigl natu docfbsen soullh thdiegn natu diyo oinn."

Tucker rolled his eyes hating that the Observants would not speak English. "So that does mean that you know who Aragon was speaking of."

"Aos rerewi hbau sygae, rerewi abrse natu docfbsen thass natu diyo dnau these Humeshn oinn." They spoke simultaneously.

Tucker looked to Dora wondering what they were saying about him. He understood the word _'Humeshn'_ was human. Maybe he didn't want to know what they were saying about him.

"If this ghost is strong enough to be trying to gain members and will be a threat to the ghost zone then we have every right to know who they are. Including, Sir Foley."

There was silence for several minutes as Dora and the Observants stared one another down. Tucker counted down the seconds. He knew Dora would probably win and was happy to see he was right when the Observants looked away first.

"Rerewi moc kowne rerorvun wehero Aragon sbin rbzfehriegn natu these tii wmruy rerewi wlien cappietn thr qfbugi aos sbaand aos pdsskbal oinn."

"And you will tell us when you have found whom he was speaking of?"

"Oinn Mhfro laiknley thal, oinn."

"Hjwedhr, dhabpgdiegn oan thr svhaerty fvas these rsausgeiegn penerwg, oecm rerewi hbau diomcd ean ivungsuctaun thel rerewi wlien hbau rersjenm seckd ohuaut natu gieebv ifmtaian."

Tucker could tell that they were trying to alleviate their worded damages, but it didn't seem that they were doing a good job by the look on Dora's face.

There was silence between everyone for another minute or so until it was Dora who broke the silence. "If that is all you have to say then I would like to ask you to leave my home at once."

"Have a good day, Princess Dorathea." The Observants bowed their eyeball heads towards them both and left instantly with the thermos carried in one of their hands.

Tucker stood there on the edge of the moat with Dora and watched them leave. They were well out of sight when she let out a huge sigh and sank towards the ground. "Dora!" he exclaimed, just barely reaching out in time to catch her before she hit the dirt.

"I truly do not like the Observants. They do nothing but… cause trouble." She breathed.

Tucker gave her a small smile, "Yeah, I know what you mean." He used his left arm to reach under her knees, fixed his arm along her back and pulled her up into his arms. "What were they saying? About Aragon?"

She shook her head against his shoulder. He began making his way back into the castle. "Not about Aragon. About the new power he spoke of."

Tucker's brow furrowed, "What about a new power? He didn't look to be doing anything new."

"No." She shook her head again. "Someone or something… is trying… to ru…le… the ghost…" Tucker looked down to see her eyes had shut and she had promptly passed out on his shoulder.

"Knew we should have pushed you out of the fight earlier."

 **August 31** **st** **, 2014**

 **Sunday (Saturday night)**

 **Dora's Kingdom**

 **3:30 a.m.**

* * *

Please Review!

 **Listed below is what was said in Ghost Speak:**

" _Join me sister, together we will reign by this new power's side." – Aragon_

" _No. You need to go back with the Observants. You will not rule again." – Dora_

" _You do not belong here anymore!" – Dora_

" _How did my brother escape. You are supposed to have rooms as secure as Walker's Prison." – Dora to the Observants_

" _That is not for us to disclose. It has happened. We will be taking him back for further questioning." – observant_

" _There has not yet been a trial?" – Dora_

" _The trial date had been set for two weeks from yesterday. However, because of this escape we are pushing ahead early." – Observant_

" _We are not able to disclose such things to you." – Observant_

" _As we have said, we are not able to disclose that to the likes of you and this human." – Observant_

" _We do not know ourselves whom Aragon was referring too. This is why we must complete the questioning as soon as possible." – Observant_

" _More likely than not, no." - Observant_

" _However, depending on the severity of this rising power, once we have done an investigation then we will have someone sent out to give information." - Observant_


	9. The End is the Beginning

Thank you so much for the Review from **CaptainDorito!** I really appreciate what you have to say. My car is still being under inspection to see if they will total it, but I guess no news is good news with that. I happy that you like Tucker taking charge like he did. That was one thing that I wasn't happy with during the show because Tucker is just as much as a leader as Danny and Sam and I wanted to show that. Little hint – it'll keep coming up :)

Also about the ghost language I made it up myself obviously and I used words from English and German and mixed them up in ways that are easy to decipher if you look hard enough. But some words are going to be a bit harder to understand. Ghost language will pop up through the rest of this story.

Also the story for **CaptainDorito** that I wrote will be up on Tuesday! Yes, this Tuesday, November 10th! I hope you all go and read it. I'm not giving any hints! Lol

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or Gasoline by Halsey.**

* * *

 **And all the people say**

 **"You can't wake up, this is not a dream**

 **You're part of a machine, you are not a human being**

 **With your face all made up, living on a screen**

 **Low on self esteem, so you run on gasoline"**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: The End is the Beginning**

 **Word count: 3,501**

 **10/8/15**

* * *

 **August 31** **st** **, 2014**

 **Sunday**

 **Dora's Kingdom**

 **8:20 a.m.**

It was odd that Danny had woken up before Sam. She was laid out on the bed beside his; blankets pulled up around her, black hair a mess around her face. He could see cloths on her arms, where she had been burned but otherwise looked alright. Tucker reassured him though that she had been up and they were checking on her every few hours because of her concussion.

"Where's Dora?" he questioned, pushing himself into a sitting position. Danny had to make sure to go slow so as to not disturb the healing of his burns on his torso and back.

Tucker rolled his green eyes, "Helping clean up the forest."

"What?" Danny's eyes widened, "You're kidding me." He shifted in his seat, but couldn't move far without spikes of pain shooting through his body. "She can't be doing that right now! She's too injured."

Tucker put a calming hand on his shoulder, "She rested up enough to go out and help her people. She's okay now."

Danny narrowed his eyes. Not that he didn't trust Dora to be telling the truth about her health, but he knew she _would_ lie so she could help her people. Plus he knew that the only one she truly ever listened to was Sam about these types of matters. And given that Sam was unconscious at the moment Danny was leaning towards the side of the argument that Dora should still be in bed healing.

Danny heaved a sigh and slowly moved his legs to the side of the bed.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Tucker stood up quickly, blocking Danny's path. "You are in no condition to be getting up." He folded his arms across his chest and glared down his best friend.

"I'm fine." He moved again, ignoring the pain from his back. "I need to talk to her."

Tucker rolled his eyes again, "And it can wait until she gets back."

"What can wait until who gets back?"

"Sam!" Danny turned quickly to the left, but quickly grabbed his side as he felt his body pull tight and heat flare up.

Her fingers had flown to her head and her eyes shut tightly, "Ugh, please don't speak so loud I have the worst migraine."

"I told you, you weren't okay." Tucker said the same time as Sam.

Danny cast a glare at his friend before gingerly moving so he could see Sam on the other bed. "How do you feel?" he made sure to lower his voice, knowing firsthand how much a concussion sucked.

Tucker walked over to her bed, deciding she was the worst off patient. "Are you dizzy still? Nauseous?"

"No." She shook her head, but groaned and brought a hand up to her forehead from the back of her head, as if the pressure would help. "I don't feel dizzy and I think the nauseous feeling is gone."

Tucker arched a brow, "You think?"

"I'm fine." She pursed her lips up at him. "Now, what are you and Danny talking about?"

"Gods you two are so alike. You are _not_ fine Sam. You need to take it easy. You have a pretty bad concussion." The two best friends locked eyes. Danny rolled his own knowing that neither one of them were going to back down. But he wasn't surprised to see Sam look away first.

"I just can't hold my vision in one place for long."

"Besides the fact that that sentence wouldn't have made sense to anyone else, you are going to stay in this bed and rest." Tucker looked over to Danny who was still trying to scooch his way to the edge. "Both of you."

"I'm fine, Tucker." They said simultaneously.

Tucker opened his mouth to put them in their place but the doors to the medical room opened and in strode Princess Dora.

She was paler than normal, and her hair was out of her braid, waving down her back. Otherwise she looked the same as any other day. "Sir Phantom." Her face lit up at the sight of Danny and Sam, "Lady Sam. Oh, how happy I am to see that you are awake at last." She moved towards them, the only sign of injury being a slight limp with her left leg.

Sam's hands reached for her head again not liking how the ghostly echo of her voice rocked her brain. "Hi Dora." She whispered back not wanting to be rude to someone she considered a sister.

"How is your head feeling?" The princess made her way towards Sam, throwing a smile at Danny as she passed his bed.

"It could be better." She admitted. She threw Tucker a side-glare when he started doing his 'I knew I was right' dance.

"I will have William bring you some of our healing tea. The herbs help us ghosts heal, but I think it'll work just as well on humans." She turned toward the door she came from and addressed one of her servants, "Dre, please fetch the healer and inform him we'll need a fresh batch of healing tea for two."

She bowed, "Yes, my lady." Then she headed back through the doors.

"Dora, I don't need the tea."

"Yes you do." Tucker, Dora and Sam insisted simultaneously.

"I'm serious. I'll be fine."

"If you drink the tea you will heal more quickly. You'll still have the scars, but your pain will be over quicker." Dora insisted.

"Are you going to drink any?" he arched an eyebrow.

Dora shook her head. "I am not bed ridden. I will be fine."

"No way, then." Danny went to fold his arms across his chest but winced as his skin was pulled taught. "I'm not taking it unless you do."

"Me either." Sam declared.

"Please no, do not discourage yourselves. I am fine, I reassure you." She held her hands up in a defensive gesture, hoping they would back off.

Danny arched an eyebrow, "Then why are you still limping?"

Dora wanted to throw a glare at him, but she kept a complacent smile on her face. She loved Danny like the true brother he had become. But sometimes she hated how he made such obvious observations. But she guessed this was what a true brother was like. At least that was what Lady Jazz had told her.

"I am _not_ limping. Merely the heel on my shoe is broken." She knew it was stupid and she could tell right away that the people she considered family that sat before her, did not believe her one bit.

"Oh, alright!" She huffed, throwing her arms in the air, "I'll take the healing tea." She hated when these three gave her the same looks. She could never hold under their gazes.

Smiles lit up the trios faces right away, pleased with her answer.

"It's not like I want to take it either." Sam whispered. Hands held to her head. "But I can barely talk without my head exploding. You have the tea so don't let it go to waste. You don't have to suffer anymore." She threw Dora a pointed look.

Dora bowed her head, her hands coming to rest together in front of her dress. "Yes, I know however, having Aragon here seems to have stirred memories I had pushed away."

Danny growled from his bed, "erBfemckn"

"Language Danny." Dora reprimanded him. "Even here the F-word is still bad."

"I'm still not happy that he escaped." He let out a long sigh and focused on switching back to speaking English. "Did the Observants Tzhell you Hwi erish escaped? Wrr rerish…" He sat focusing harder to stay on the English track. "Were they able to tell you who he was talking about?" He groaned and rubbed a hand through his hair.

Tucker and Sam chuckled from their positions along with Dora. "Still having trouble Sir Phantom?" He stuck his tongue out at her.

"We will practice later. However, about my brother, no. The Observants did not say how he escaped and they would only give me small details about what they are doing now. Also, they had no word on who my brother spoke of."

"They definitely weren't forth coming with information with me there." Tucker grumbled 'annoying' and sat down at the end of Sam's bed. "Dora even tried to get them to switch to English, but they kept up the conversation in Ghost."

"They did state however, that when they knew whom Aragon was speaking and what their severity level was, they would send someone out to inform me."

"Though we doubt that'd happen." Tucker snorted and folded his arms across his chest. "They kept acting like they knew more than what they did and said that they couldn't disclose any information to us, especially with me there. Or at least that's the way Dora said they said it."

"What?" Sam squeezed the side of her head, "But Danny's half human and they still tell _him_ things. Talk about being prejudiced."

"They've only told me what they _think_ I _need_ to know."

"True, but at least that's some sort of information. Also, you would think that as the Observants, labeled as such because they observe everyone into their past, present and future that they would know who this Power is. I mean when something bad is about to happen or close to, they go to Clockwork and then he gets us to help him out. Just like with the other timelines."

"So are you saying," Tucker mused and Dora took a seat next to Danny on his bed. "That this Power is blocking themselves from the Observants?"

Before Sam could answer the large doors to the infirmary opened and a ghostly man floated in followed by Dora's servant Dre.

"I have prepared two mugs of healing tea my lady." He bowed to the princess still holding the platter with the two mugs of steaming tea on them in front of himself.

"Thank you, William." The healer stood tall again, "Please do give one to Sir Phantom and Lady Manson." She only used Sam and Tucker's last names when others in her kingdom were around because that was the way of time for her people.

"You are welcome Princess Dora." He quickly handed the very full mugs of steaming hot tea to the two teenagers who thanked him before turning back to Dora. "I will be back to check you over." He bowed and walked back through the large double doors.

"Dre, why don't you and the others take the night? Be with you families."

She bowed, "Thank you, my Lady. I will inform the others of your decision, farewell." She was gone just under five seconds when William walked back into the infirmary.

"Please, drink the tea." He told them coming to Danny's bed first.

"I'm not drinking until you take at least three drinks Dora." Danny locked eyes with the princess as William waved his hands over Danny's body. A blue, bright green and yellow light emitted over him.

Dora held her hand out for the mug and Danny passed it to her. She took it from his out stretched hands. The trio watched her carefully and made sure she took her three drinks. "There." She handed it back to him. "Now would you please drink it?" She looked from Danny to Sam and watched as they lifted the mugs to their lips and took a drink.

Both of them grimaced and quickly covered their mouths. "Dora, this is wretched." Sam gagged.

"Well it very well isn't intended to taste good. It has magic infused into it. Magic isn't supposed to taste good." William said pulling his hands away from Danny. "You Sir Phantom will be okay. Your vitals are stable and your core is staying strong."

"Thank you." Danny nodded and took another drink of his tea. He grimaced again at the horrid taste. He couldn't decide if it tasted more like vomit or gasoline. Or maybe it was both. He had no idea, it just tasted disgusting.

"Lady Manson, I insist that you drink all of the tea." William moved from Danny's bed to Sam's; waving his hands over her head. A bright blue light emitted around her entire body with yellow light centered over her head and smaller parts of her body.

She begrudgingly took another sip while pinching her nose closed. Tucker laughed and Sam threw him a dark glare that didn't have any effect on him anymore. "What's the verdict, doc?"

William looked at Sam in confusion at her phrasing but understood what she was asking, having been around the teens plenty of times before. "Your concussion is quite severe. However, after drinking the healing tea will you be at full operation in a few hours." He moved his hands from her head to her arms and legs. "Your burns will take longer to heal than your concussion, due to you being fully human. But I am certain you will be healed completely before night fall."

He pulled his hands away and turned towards Princess Dora, "Thank you very much, William. That will be all for now."

"Yes, My Lady." He bowed and made his way from the room.

"We need to speak with Clockwork. See if he has been told anything from the Observants. You know how he isn't one of their fans." Tucker chuckled again at Sam's face as she took a drink.

"Yeah I have a couple of other things I'd like to talk to him about." Danny grumbled.

"May I inquire as to what you are to question him?" Dora asked, still from her position at the end of his bed.

"Actually, I was going to ask you something similar." Danny let out a heavy sigh, took another drink and asked her if she had heard anything about him becoming the new Ghost King.

She looked at the group for a minute in appalled silence. "You do not know that you are to take Pariah Dark's place? I was sure that you were told this upon defeating him."

Danny shook his head, "No, no I wasn't told about it." He took another agonizing drink. "I actually heard it through a GIW agent in class."

"The Guys in White knew before you did?"

"Afraid so." Tucker answered. "None of us had a clue."

"Who was it that informed them?"

"They said that it was ghosts they had captured. But we have a feeling Plasmius was the one to start their thought process."

"Plasmius?" Dora looked around at them shocked. "He spoke with the Guys in White and was not captured?"

Sam shook her head. The healing tea was already beginning to make her feel better. "They didn't say how they got the information from him and we didn't ask them _or_ Vlad. But what do you think of this information?"

"I fully believe that Danny is the newest Ghost King. He defeated Pariah Dark and that is that." She turned to Danny, "You would make a great Ghost King. Being a halfa would help you make peace between our world and your world."

"Peace?" Danny arched an eyebrow. "With the Fenton Portal and Vlad's portal constantly open that will definitely _not_ be happening. And anyway, I couldn't _be_ the Ghost King. I don't have the power that Pariah had in my left foot. I couldn't rule over the Ghost Zone when more than 90% of its inhabitants hate me. There is no logical reasoning to me becoming the Ghost King." Danny took a couple large gulps of his tea.

"Power? You think that it all comes down to power?" Dora scoffed at him, earning her confused looks from everyone. "You are not true royalty so I will forgive your ignorance. Me and my people are quite powerful. Anyone of my people has powers of sorcery, they are all powerful and anyone could rise up and overpower me on any day. They do not because I have knowledge.

"Knowledge is a key much greater than power. But it's not only knowledge and power it's what you strive for as a ruler. Now that my brother is gone, I strive to bring my entire Kingdom forth into a better understanding of the 21st Century in the ghost zone and to hold better trade with the other kingdoms residing here. What I'm trying to say is that being a ruler comes a responsibility from what's in your heart that is fueled by your own power.

"Being a ruler is being fair to your people, making sacrifices that need to be made but never being too cruel or harsh. To know who you are and exercise restraint. Being a ruler is someone who knows power is a small part to ruling and responsibility and heart is something that is the greater." Dora ended her speech with a clear voice that led to a strange silence in the infirmary.

"I… I don't… you're right." Danny finally said. He had never thought of ruling to be similar to responsibility but the way Dora spoke of it and the hard tone in her voice told him it was unlike any other responsibility you could imagine. But he still had a problem. "But your people all love you, or at least know you. They let you and your previous family have a chance to rule them, to guide them. But this is the entirety of the Ghost Zone.

"Those ghosts have lived without Pariah for years. But most of them know that he was a horrid ruler. And say that _I am_ the next Ghost King, I don't know my people. And most of them, actually like I said before, more than 90% of them wouldn't _want_ me to rule over them."

"It is not about _want_." Dora interrupted, "It is about what has happened, a title that has been given to you. You have been handed something that can help the ghosts with the humans and the humans with the ghosts."

Danny lowered his head into his hands. He was glad that he couldn't feel the pain of the burns and broken bones anymore. "How do the grounds look?"

Dora frowned at his obvious change in conversation. She decided it was best to let it go, not wanting to argue with him. "They are fine. The fires have been put out. Everyone will be going back to normal tomorrow."

"Good. Since that seems to be all in order and all of this," He took a large drink of the healing tea, making a face as it went down his throat. "Ugh, all of this tea is gone, why don't we work on our Ghost language lessons."

"Yeah Dora, me and Tucker are really rusty. Plus," Sam threw Danny a dirty look which he ignored. "Danny never likes to teach us at home."

"I never said that. I just usually have other things to do." He answered, rolling his eyes.

"You and Tucker spend half of your time playing video games."

"We do _not_." Tucker said indignantly.

"Not like you're not playing either Sam." Danny said simultaneously.

"I don't play for as long as you guys." She rolled her eyes, she opened her mouth to continue her argument however Dora beat her to it.

"Why don't we go ahead and start where we left off last time?"

* * *

A few hours later the trio said good-bye to Dora and promised to come back soon when things weren't so crazy.

It was quiet as they flew the Specter Speeder to Clockworks. They pulled into the large castle but Clockwork was not visible in the main room.

"Clockwork?" Danny called out, but received no answer except for ticking clocks and hollow space. "Clockwork!" he yelled out again, but his father figure did not show himself.

"Where is he?" Tucker questioned, exiting from the speeder with Sam.

"He doesn't stay here all the time, Tucker." Sam rolled her eyes and Danny called out again.

"Well, then what's he doing?" Tucker folded his arms across his chest.

"I don't know. Maybe he's talking with the Observants." Danny guessed before flying through the Time castle but again found nothing.

"Why don't we wait here an hour. If he doesn't show, then we go home and come back later. Because I have no intention of going and talking to the Observants." Sam said, and took a seat on the floor.

Danny and Tucker agreed that was best and settled in for the wait.

However, an hour came and went with not Clockwork. Deciding waiting for another hour wouldn't hurt them, they stayed. But still no Clockwork. The trio waited a total of four hours before they decided that he wasn't going to come back and decided it would be best to come back a couple days later on Wednesday when they could make time to go back into the Ghost Zone.

 **August 31** **st** **, 2014**

 **Sunday**

 **Clockwork's Castle**

 **7:00 p.m.**

* * *

 **Please Review!**

 **And don't forget to check out my new story i'm posting on Tuesday night for DP for CaptainDorito for winning the challenge!**

Ghost language translated:

 **erBfemckn – Fucker**

 **tell – Tzhell**

 **how – Hwi**

 **he – erish**

 **Were – Wrr**

 **They – rerish**


	10. Emotional Language

Hey guys! So in this chapter there is a fight scene. I just want to fair warn you that I haven't had a lot of practice with fight scenes. So if anyone who thinks that I did horrible or really need help, please PM me if you want to help me. Otherwise you can just leave a review.

Also! I have posted the one-shot for the winner **CaptainDorito**! It's called **'Death's Guilty Sorry** '. If you haven't read it yet it you should totally go check it out! Also if you want a second chapter on it, I must have 20 reviews minimum for that story and a minimum of 7 reviews on this chapter.

I hate asking for reviews but the view for this story is so HIGH that I know that a lot of you can take your time out to write something.

Speaking of Reviews I want to thank my three reviewers: **Great, Lilith Jae and CaptainDorito.** Thank you guys so much! I love that you are loving this story since I've spent more than a year and a half working on it.

 **Lilith Jae:** Thanks for telling me Horatio's name :) I actually LOVE CSI: Miami too, but I figured that Danny wasn't one to watch that show and if he did it would only be a few episodes or something so he would be the one to not remember who he was.

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or the song Victorious by Panic! At the Disco.**

* * *

 **I'm like a scarf trick, it's all up the sleeve**

 **I taste like magic, waves that swallow quick and deep**

 **Throw the bait, catch the shark, bleed the water red**

 **Fifty words for murder and I'm every one of them**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Emotional Language**

 **Word count: 4,288**

 **11/15/15**

* * *

 **September 9** **th** **, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **Casper High**

 **1:45 p.m.**

"Tuesday. How is it only Tuesday?" Tucker complained loudly as he leaned against the locker next to Danny's. Danny and Sam rolled their eyes at him – Tucker muttered 'Lovebirds under his breath.

"You've been complaining about it being Tuesday all freaking day!" Sam growled, "Give it a rest already."

"Yeah man, I'm kinda on Sam for this one."

" _On_ Sam?" Tucker stressed, raising a brow.

" _With_! I meant _with_ Sam."

" _Really_? I didn't know you guys, Ow!" Both of them punched his shoulders, pink coloring their cheeks.

"Shut up, bad luck Tuck." Sam quipped, closing Danny's locker door.

"Shh!" He threw his hands over her mouth, "I don't want that to come back!"

Sam smirked and shoved his hand away, "I know. Bad luck Tuck!"

"Sam!"

"Guys! Give it a rest already." Danny groaned, rubbing his temples.

They stopped their argument but Sam kept up her smirk and Tucker his glare. They threw glances and odd faces at each other till they made it into Ghost 101 and class was starting.

"Afternoon class." Agent Z stood from his desk as the class replied lazily back. "Well, I guess that's the best I'm gonna get from you all." He sighed and pulled down the overhead screen where another PowerPoint sat ready for them.

The title that was staring back at them had not only the trio gasping and gaping, but the entire class.

 **Learning Ghost Language**

The trio looked at one another, confusion written over each of their faces. The class itself had broken out into loud conversation.

"How in the world?" Danny voiced their aghast aloud.

"I have absolutely no idea. A ghost wouldn't give up that information. Plus it's hard enough to understand. There's no way they have the entire language down."

"Maybe it's only guesses, you know?" Tucker stated hopefully. "Maybe it's their own version."

"Ugh." Danny rubbed his temples, "I don't want to have the wrong version of ghost language floating around in my head. It'll just make everything that much harder." Tucker and Sam placed one of their hands on his shoulders comfortingly.

"Alright. Alright!" Agent Z shouted, the class falling instantly quiet. "Have we got our shock out of the way?" When no one answered he continued on, "Now, the ghost language is an extremely difficult language. We'll be focusing on important words that you will need to know and putting together simple sentences." He clicked to the next slide.

"Now the basics that you will need to know are…" he looked are around the room, glaring at the people who didn't have their notebooks on their desk. "going to be on the test, so I suggest you write this down." He continued on as people scrambled for their notebooks, "We've noticed that when ghosts speak their structure is simple and does not change whether the sentence is past, present or future. We've also noticed that it does not change structure upon negation."

Danny sucked in a sharp breath. That was almost exactly similar to what Dora had told him. The only thing that was wrong was the use of negation. It only changed the sentence a little bit. He shared a nervous look with Sam and Tucker before going back to the board.

"The simple structure makes it seem as though they are incapable of understanding how to comprehend complex sentences."

Danny growled lowly not liking the implication that all ghosts were dumb.

"Interestingly enough, what helps support this thought is that ghosts don't use conjunctions. Absolutely none."

The trio couldn't believe that Agent Z had gotten another thing correct. Sam instantly raised her hand.

"Yes, Sam?"

"How did you all learn about this?"

"That information is classified. However I am able to tell you that I have been studying the language since I became a part of the GIW – 14 years."

"So you know everything on ghost language?" Sam quirked an eyebrow.

"Yes, the language hasn't changed for a long time."

"So if I were to say something that I heard a ghost say early this morning you could translate it?"

The Agent's eyes widened. "You saw a ghost this morning? Why did you not call it in?"

Sam waved her hand dismissively, "I saw Danny Phantom chasing him. Anyway, the ghost said, ' **Faastr mih dnua mih Blufbpwerafppe oedr dschoosalm'."**

Danny snorted from her side trying to keep a straight face along with Tucker. They had heard the Box Ghost say 'fear me and my bubble wrap of doom' so many times that they had the phrase memorized.

Agent Z stood in front of them with a blank look on his face before speaking, "Fear me and tremble at my power." He nodded in affirmation. "I hope that this will give you more incentive to call on the GIW the next time you see a ghost and, or Phantom

Sam kept a tight knowing smile on her face, "Oh yeah, definitely."

"Good." He turned back to the rest of the class and the PowerPoint. "Now, ghosts haven't changed their language as I told Ms. Manson, and we at the GIW believe this to be because it is considered a dead language and that there is a ghost that stays in the Zone 24/7 that controls the language."

The trio rolled their eyes at that idea. Not that they knew everyone in the Ghost Zone but it seemed unlikely that there would be one ghost that controlled the ghost's language. Danny pulled out a loose-leaf piece of paper and began writing a note to Sam and Tucker.

 _He seriously only knows enough to get him by. I still want to know how he got this information in the first place._

Sam grabbed the paper before Tucker could; **Maybe they have a ghost gabber like Maddie and Jack?**

Both Tucker and Danny contemplated this silently. Tucker came to a conclusion first and reached for the paper that sat on Danny's desk. - Maybe, but then wouldn't that mean that he would have been able to tell us exactly what you had said? -

Danny let Sam read the paper before writing on it. _Not unless they're only using the ghost gabber when they are translating a ghost. Letting it do all the work, while they just get what the ghost says._

 **True. But then how does he know these few things that he's teaching us? I mean the GIW would have had to have had written reports on what ghosts were saying for a long time to be able to come to these few, slightly correct conclusions.**

\- They probably have a linguist in their departments and they probably record all of the interrogations and what-not that they do so they can figure out how ghosts talk. -

 _Since he tried to translate what Sam had said though, he hasn't said one right thing. I haven't even had to concentrate on writing in English. Though I know sometimes I can't tell when it happens, but still._

\- So more than likely they've picked up a few things, but they've constructed it towards what they _think_ a ghost is saying than what the ghost is  actually saying. -

 _We really, really need to get into their files to see what they've got. I don't like being in the dark when they're staying here all this time._

Tucker and Sam wrote down their agreements with Danny just as the bell rang. They had kept dutiful notes as Agent Z had lectured, not wanting to miss any of the information that the Agency thought they had correct.

The rest of the day was spent updating their ghost files – what they learned in Ghost 101. They fought a few ghosts, had a run-in with Jack and Maddie out on patrol, but were able to evade them eventually. After dinner where Danny's parents actually attended, Sam and Tucker headed home and Danny back up to his room.

The next day, Wednesday, everything was going as normal as it could considering it was high school. Class went well until third period, Pre-Calculus, when his ghost sense went off. He flew off to go find out who it was, but through the whole time he had to fight off Valerie.

"Can't you just leave me alone? It's been a refreshing week of not seeing you." Danny said as he dodged a blast from her ecto-ray.

"I've been waiting for some new weapons to come in." She cocked her gun again and shot. He had to dodge through the nearby apartment building to escape being hit. He rose through the roof, wanting to make sure he was above her. Except she seemed to be expecting that and met him up there.

"Whoa!"

He could practically see her roll her eyes. "You do that so often it's not hard to see where you're going to go next. You really need some new moves."

Danny stood there with his arms folded across his chest, "Yeah. And _you_ really need to stop working for Masters."

She cocked her head to the side and slowly lowered her gun. Not enough that Danny could get away, but low enough to know she wanted to say something. "What do you have against him anyway?"

"Nothing."

"Really?"

"Yeah, Really."

"Then why do you always have negative things to say about him?"

"Eh," He shrugged, "He's a billionaire and he takes power when he shouldn't." He figured that was the best answer to not lead her towards figuring out their connection. Just because she was working for Vlad didn't mean he wanted her to end up finding out about him. Mainly because she'd shoot him first and then ask questions later. Or at least that's what he _thought_ she'd do.

"That really doesn't give you reason for having such a negative tone about him."

"What's it matter to you? You're one of his lackeys." Danny knew he went too far when she raised her gun and shot at him.

He was off. The chase lasted another thirty or so minutes with Danny working to catch the few ghosts he saw out with Valerie on his tail. He finally was able to avoid her for a few minutes near the school and changed back before she could find him. He was thankful that it was only fifth period when he got back. Of course it was the end of fifth period. But still.

He walked into the lunch room sans lunch box and found Sam and Tucker sitting at a table in the far corner.

As he made his way over to them he saw Dash and Paulina rise from their table with the other 'popular kids' with their lunch trays. As they passed through the rows of tables, Mikey and Nathan were making their way back to their own table from where he had thrown away his own trash. Mikey was talking with Nathan while Dash was listening to Paulina whine more than normal about getting mud on her new Prada tote.

He watched almost in slow motion as Dash hit shoulders with Mikey hard, sending him into Nathan who had to catch himself on the table they were passing. Danny stopped in his tracks. He had to see if he needed to intervene or not.

Dash turned to Mikey, his eyes wide in something Danny had only ever seen once before towards someone who he thought was lower than him. "Whoa! I'm so sorry. I wasn't watching where I was going."

Mikey straightened out and smoothed down his shirt. Shrugging his shoulders he said, "Eh, your brains not large enough to handle that capacity of thought, so I'll let it pass." And with that everyone went on their separate ways.

Danny stayed rooted in his spot. He seemed to be the only one who noticed what had happened. Even the surrounding tables hadn't noticed. Everyone had gone back to what they were doing before the strange occurrence. He shook himself out of his shock and continued to his table.

"Did you guys just see what happened?" He questioned them, taking a seat next to Tucker.

"No." They both answered.

"You're kidding."

"What happened?" Sam asked.

"Dash totally bumped into Mikey and said 'Sorry' and Mikey retorted with a sarcastic comment about Dash's intelligence."

Both of them looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. Tucker's hand was halfway to his mouth, his fork filled with mashed potatoes.

"Are you sure you heard him right?" Sam asked, her eyebrows furrowing. He gave her his 'are you serious' look. "Okay!" She held up her hands, "Just Dash has never said sorry for hitting someone before. I mean the only time I've ever seen him say 'sorry' was when everyone found out about you."

"He's not exactly the apologetic type." Tucker added.

"I'm telling you, he said sorry to Mikey. Paulina was with him too and she didn't even say anything when it all happened."

"You think he's being possessed?" Tucker asked, then took a large bite from his burger.

"Maybe?" Danny shrugged. Sam offered him one of her apples and he took it heartily. "But that doesn't explain Mikey, or Paulina, or Nathan just standing there."

"Did your ghost sense go off?"

Danny took a bite from the apple, juice dribbled down his chin. "No."

"Just cause his ghost sense didn't go off doesn't mean that nothing's going on." Tucker said.

"I know that. I was just asking." Sam rolled her eyes. "Come on, the bell's gonna ring any minute."

They stood up from their seats and made their way out the doors with a few other people. The trio grabbed their gym clothes from Sam's locker and made their way to their respective locker rooms just as the bell rang. The trio was sitting in the gym trying to figure out what was going on with Dash and Mikey quietly to themselves as the other students piled in and finally they were joined by Mrs. Tetslaff.

"All right! I'm going to count you off into four groups. We're playing kickball." She announced, then counted them all off into groups of 4. The trio separated themselves enough to when they counted off that they were in the same group. However, they were also in the group with Dash and a few of his football buddies. "Group 1 against group 3! Group 2 against group 4! Whoever wins plays each other!"

"Group 2 let's go." Dash said taking immediate charge. They all followed him to the right side of the gym. "We're kicking first."

Everyone moved to get into line like Dash said. He himself made his way over to the trio before they could follow suit. "Hey Fenton. Foley." That pulled them up short.

"What is it Dash?"

"Look, I just…" He ran his hand through his hair and looked them both in the eyes, "I just wanted to say that I was sorry for the incident this morning. With the lunch box."

There was stunned silence from the trio and the few friends of Dash that stood beside him.

"I uh… I don't know what to say." Danny said.

"Me either." Tucker shrugged.

"What's wrong with you Dash?" Tyler, one of captains on the Varsity Basketball team asked.

"Nothing." The trio found it odd at the calm tone in his voice.

"It's okay to apologize to them," Star said, "Sometimes it's good. It keeps everybody on their toes."

Dash shrugged and took off towards the kicking line; the other populars followed him.

"That… was… weird." Tucker told them.

"I'll say." Danny agreed.

"Come on. Let's go." Sam pushed them to the end of the line.

Throughout the rest of gym class there were more instances of people not acting like themselves. Nathan had yelled out "You suck loser!" when one of the middle-grounders, Caitlyn, wasn't able to kick the ball at any given opportunity. He was always quieter than Mikey. Another girl that was typically a chatter box was intensely quiet. One of the best baseball players at Casper High was practically sleeping while playing the game. Which might not have been weird for some people but he was always someone who was on the move.

"Okay, it's not just me right?" Sam asked as they all made their way to Ghost 101.

"No way. Something strange is definitely going on." Tucker commented, fiddling with his PDA again.

"When we go on patrol tonight we're going to have to look for certain different types of mood behaviors going on to find this ghost."

"It's _always_ a ghost." Tucker sighed.

"What else would it be?" Danny laughed.

"Hopefully this one will be easy to find." Sam opened the door to their classroom and they all made their way to their seats.

"Probably not." Danny advised. They both agreed.

A few minutes later Agent Z began class by announcing that they were going to be having a quiz over the things they'd learned these past two and a half weeks they'd been in school. The class collectively groaned. "Would you like me to make this a test grade instead of a quiz grade?"

"No!" The entire class practically chorused.

"Then no complaining. You have thirty minutes and then we'll finish up a few things on Ghost language. You may begin when I hand you your paper."

Danny had to hold back a chuckle as he looked over the 20 question quiz. This was going to be the easiest quiz he'd ever taken.

 **What level is a ghost determined to be able to have more than basic powers?**

Danny rolled his eyes. Though he knew it was worded to throw some people off it was easy for him to remember that Level 5 was the answer.

He was only able to get five minutes into the quiz when his ghost sense went off. He sighed, and rubbed his temples. Of course. Of course this would happen when he was taking one of the easiest quizzes in his easiest class. He looked down at his paper. He had been able to answer 7 of the questions so far. If he left now and didn't come back he'd get an 'F' on the quiz and he _really_ didn't want to do that.

He sighed again. Danny knew that he needed to leave. It was probably the ghost that was making everyone act differently. Maybe if he answered a couple more questions. He'd answer till number 10 then see if Agent Z would let him go to the bathroom.

Just as he made this decision however, his ghost sense went off again and a ghostly woman phased into their classroom. She had long dark green hair that reached her waist, bright green eyes stared them down in a way that made the entire atmosphere go cold. A golden robe flowed from her shoulders. She wore a white shirt with black pants and golden boots with her robe.

"Well, isn't this a surprise. I didn't expect to find _you_ here." Her throaty and ghostly echoed voice contradicted her beautiful appearance. Her green eyes locked on his.

Agent Z pulled a weapon from underneath his desk and quickly aimed it at her.

"Oh, you really don't want to do that." She waved her hand towards him and Agent Z instantly lowered his guns. "You don't feel like shooting anything." A green wave surrounded him. When it disappeared he put his weapon down completely, and sat down in his chair and closed his eyes.

The class screamed and ran for the door. In no time the classroom was empty besides the laughing ghost, Agent Z and the trio.

"So I guess you found the place okay." Danny quickly changed into Phantom.

"Eh, the emotions of a high school are always so easily findable."

"Glad we could be of service to you." He rolled his eyes. "Should we get down to the fighting or would you like to talk a bit longer?"

"I could fight. There's been too much down time for me lately."

"Good." Danny shot an ectoblast at her chest. She quickly dodged and shot her own wave of ecto-energy towards him. He was barely able to dodge away in time and shot his own blast back at her.

Tucker and Sam got out their wrist rays from their backpacks and took shots at the new ghost as she was focused on Danny.

"Excuse me!" She yelled, throwing a large wave of ecto-energy towards them both, wrapping around them. Danny shot an ice beam at her and she was unable to avoid it and hit the classroom wall.

"You guys okay?" Danny asked making his way over to them as the green disappeared from around them.

"What do _you_ care?" Sam glared up at him. He looked to Tucker to see him glaring as well.

"Sam, wha…" He turned to the new ghost. "What did you do to her? To both of them?"

"The emotion or mood as it were, they're feeling right now is morose. Intensified."

"Change them back." Danny growled, lighting both hands with ecto-energy.

"I don't think so." She smiled at him and lit her own hands with green ecto-energy.

"Who are you?"

"Oh!" She looked shocked. "My apologies I didn't introduce myself before. I'm Seraphina."

" _Not_ so glad to meet you. Why are you doing this?"

She rolled her eyes, "Like I'm going to tell _you_ that. Let's just say I wanna have a little fun." She shot a wave of energy at him as he shot an ecto-ball at her. It collided in mid-air sending sparks of green energy everywhere.

Then she was on him. Punching and kicking and trying to shoot him with her mood beams.

"Guys, get out of here! Take Agent Z with you." Danny shouted trying to get Seraphina out of the classroom but she was just as good as a fighter as Sam or Valerie. He needed to get them out of here so no more of the mood beams would hit them.

"O-okay, D-Danny." Tucker stuttered out, fear clear in his voice.

Danny looked over his shoulder to see him pulling a now crying Sam from the classroom and a stumbling Agent Z. Great, now make that _three_ times he's seen Sam cry in public in his life. This distraction cost him however as he was shot in the chest and sent into a row of desks.

His body hurt from his landing but warmth flowed through his legs and up to his head. A sense of boredom overcame him.

He could be doing something better with his time. He knew that. But this fight was boring to him. He shot an ectoblast at her. He sighed and waited for her retaliation. He moved to the left to avoid her fired shot. A yawn escaped his lips as he fired back. She sent another wave towards him and came close behind it, punching him in the jaw as another warmth flowed through him, and then he was pissed off.

He punched her back hard in the stomach, with an uppercut to her jaw sending her through the ceiling. He followed her, but he was unable to see her. Danny growled angrily, "What? Too scared now?"

"Not even close." She said reappearing a few feet to his left and hit him with another blast. This time however he didn't feel that warmth flow through him and he was slightly disappointed.

"I have had," He did a spin kick but missed her, "to deal with messed up emotions too many fucking," he hit her in the head with an ice ray, sending her through the outside wall of the classroom they were in. "times. And I don't…" He was hit again and crashed into the brick and threw an oversized ecto-ball into her stomach. "need _anyone else_ messing with them _again_!" He threw another oversized ecto-ball at her and she hit him with another wave.

Back and forth they went. All over the school. Danny kept up with her the best he could but she would hit him again with another emotion and whatever it was, it typically drove his fighting. They were over the football field when she got in a good hit that Danny had trouble getting up from. Green ectoplasm leaked from his right shoulder at an alarming rate and he had to focus all his energy on not passing out when he tried to stand up.

"Good luck, Phantom." She winked at him before waving her hands skyward. From them emitted a pulsing green wave that covered everything from where they stood to the parking lot on the other side of the school. "You're gonna need it." She winked again. Seraphina lowered her hands and disappeared with a twirl of her robe.

The green energy stayed for another minute before completely disappearing.

Danny was positive that the wave was supposed to change his and everyone up at the school's emotions. But he felt just like himself. "Maybe it backfired on me." He said aloud to himself. He tried to move again and winced. Quickly changing back into Fenton, not wanting to explain himself as Phantom, he wasn't too concerned about it, but figured it was a smart move. Danny wiped the blood on his shirt from his hands. He pulled up part of his T-shirt, grabbed a hold of his undershirt and ripped a large chunk of cloth off and applied it to his wound.

He tried to stand up again but got too dizzy and had to sit back down. He sighed and pulled out his phone and texted Sam and Tucker to pick him up down by the football field.

 **September 10** **th** **, 2014**

 **Wednesday**

 **Amity Park, Park**

 **2:30 p.m.**

* * *

So what do you think of Seraphina!? Let me know!

Also if anyone wants to know to know my reasoning's for the lyrics on the previous chapters i have picked let me know in a review and if i have a few people ask about it i'll have my reasoning's listed at the end of the next chapter

 **NEXT CHAPTER HINT!:** Will our Lovebirds finally confess their feelings?

Please go check out **'Death's Guilty Sorry!** ' it's really good i promise. And it'll make you cry. Well, it made me cry lol

 **GL translation – "Fear me and my bubble wrap of doom."**


	11. Losing Control

Hey guys! Sorry that this was a day late. One of my Best Friend's 21st birthday was this weekend and well, yeah. So I think you all are either going to **love me** or **hate me** for this chapter and I want to know if you do or don't in your reviews.

By the way thank you so much for all the reviews from: **CaptainDorito (** always love your loyalty **), Great, ShinyMudkipGal, Randamwriter, Savirox, Krusher, Danny Phantom Overload, SamXDanny, Guest and FowlFandKid13**. Apparently that threatening thing works! Haha well I think I'll keep this up. I won't update this chapter unless I get a minimum of **7 reviews**. And TRUST ME you want me to update the next chapter lol.

 ****Notes to Reviewers are at the end!**** CaptainDorito Great, Randamwriter, Savirox, and FowlFandKid13.

 ****Important for further story reading!**

This story is slow going for a reason because it expands over a long period of time that has many intricate details. I've been planning this story for a long time and it will probably end up in three or four different parts all with about 75 – 100 chapters or so each seeing how it's taken me 11 chapters to only get this far. I have everything planned out; it's just the matter of writing the chapters. So if you are not ready for the long haul then I guess you shouldn't be reading my story? But I would love it if you did! By the way, season 3 has happened. PP is the only thing that _hasn't_ happened. PP was bad and this is my way of going around it because Vlad would never be this stupid and his plans are way more intricate and laid out then that stupid stuff he did in Phantom Planet.

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Danny Phantom or the lyrics to Halsey's song 'Drive'

* * *

 **All we do is drive**

 **All we do is think about the feelings that we hide**

 **All we do is sit in silence waiting for a sign**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Losing Control**

 **Word count: 4,520**

 **11/23/15**

* * *

 **September 10** **th** **, 2014**

 **Wednesday**

 **Amity Park, Park**

 **7 p.m.**

The trio spent the rest of the afternoon searching for Seraphina. But after four hours of searching the entire city and suburbs, escaping the GIW and Danny's parent's, they weren't able to find _anything_ on her.

"We really shouldn't be that worried guys. It's not like this hasn't happened before." Danny said as Sam drove them all home.

"We're never going to find her." Tucker said somberly from the back seat.

Danny shrugged, "Eh, we will. No need to worry."

"I don't know, Danny. This Seraphina ghost is making me a little nervous. Emotions? That's a big deal." Sam tightened her hands on her steering wheel.

"We'll look for her tomorrow with a fresh set of eyes." Danny tried to ease her nervousness as she pulled up to Tucker's house.

"Bye Tuck." They both said. He gave them a grunt in acknowledgement before getting out and going inside.

The car was filled with silence as Sam continued on to Danny's home. She was continuously tapping her fingers on the steering wheel even as she pulled up in front of Fenton Works, "I think Tucker's right Danny."

"It'll all be fine. We have to wait for her to come to us. No use in fretting over something that isn't dire."

"I guess you're right." Sam sighed. "See you tomorrow."

"Bye." He leaned over and kissed her cheek before hopping out of the car and making his way up the stairs to his front door.

He was shocked to find his parents sitting at the kitchen table. A pot was going over the stove and it smelled like chicken and dumplings. "Hi Danny-boy!" His father called as he shut the door.

"Hi sweetie." His mother echoed waving at him with a screwdriver in her hand as she worked to fix a problem with the Fenton Bazooka.

"Uh, hi guys. Is that chicken and dumplings?" He felt relaxed around them for the first time in a long time and he wasn't sure if he liked that.

Maddie smiled and looked up from her work. "It is. And it'll be ready in a few minutes. Why don't you go wash up and set the table?"

"Okay." He set his backpack down at the bottom of the stairs before making his way into the kitchen. He washed his hands before pulling out bowls and spoons.

When the timer beeped Maddie got up and turned off the gas and began filling the bowls with one of Danny's favorite dinners. He sat himself down next to Jack and across from Maddie, taking the lesser of the two evils. Dinner flowed well considering Danny thought it was going to blow up in all of their faces. He finished his food and told his parents that he had to go upstairs to finish his homework.

They let him go, no matter how much Maddie wanted him to stay downstairs and talk with them. "We need to be home more, Jack." She gazed at the stairs where she had watched Danny go.

"We _are_ home Mads."

"But we're usually down in the lab." She looked over to him as he fiddled with the Ghost Gabber. He still wasn't sure what was making it misinterpret things ghosts were saying. "I'm worried about Danny."

"He's doing fine Mads. Mr. Lancer told me he was doing better in school this year than previously."

"I know. But without Jazz here, _he's_ never here."

Jack looked up, noticing his wife's sad serious face he reached across the table and grabbed her hand his own. "He's gonna be fine Mads. I promise. Things are looking up for him."

Maddie gave him a small smile. "Thank you, honey. Now," She shook herself out of her stupor, though the sadness never left her heart, "What are we going to do about this Ghost Gabber?"

* * *

 **September 10** **th** **, 2014**

 **Wednesday**

 **Manson Household**

 **9 p.m.**

Sam currently sat in her room going over notes for her mythology class, wanting to make sure that everything she had read was in order for the test she was going to have next week when there was a knock on her bedroom door.

"Who is it?" She called.

"It's me Bubeleh."

"Come on in grandma!"

Her door opened, her grandma drove in and closed the door behind her. "How are we today, Sam? You seemed to be far away during dinner time."

"Oh, it's nothing." She closed her notebook. She could focus on it later. "Danny kissed me on the cheek when I dropped him off tonight."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah. How was your day?"

"It was okay. Nothing compared to that kiss though."

Sam chuckled, "It was nothing, really."

"Are you sure?" Ida Manson cocked her head to the side.

She pursed her lips as she thought about. "No I'm pretty sure."

Ida shook her head at her granddaughter. "Sam, I know that this young man loves you. Sometimes you just need to be the first one to say something. I had to when I came to," She looked down, "Well you know." She looked back up into Sam's lilac eyes. "You need to take charge. I'm so envious of you that you have this great opportunity to be with the one you love and you won't take your chance. Be happy for yourself. Have what I could never have, Sam."

Her voice rang with final clarity throughout Sam's room. Sam herself looked down at her bedspread and played with the fringe at the end of her black blanket.

"You're right."

Ida looked at her granddaughter in shock. "What?"

Sam looked up, meeting her grandma's eyes, "You're right. I'm gonna go right now."

"It's nine o'clock at night."

"I know." She smiled. "Thanks grandma." She got up, kissed her on the forehead and grabbed her keys on the dresser. "If mom or dad asks, just cover for me." And she was out the door.

Ida just shook her head. If she had known she was going to react like this she would have told her that a lot sooner. She wasn't sure why she chose tonight to tell Sam that, but it felt right.

Sam couldn't help smiling too herself. She couldn't believe she was going to do this. She was finally going to tell Danny that she loved him. Danny Fenton. Her Best Friend since they were 6. She really couldn't believe that this was going to happen. She was able to make good time to Danny's house considering she was walking. She hadn't wanted to drive in case she woke her parents or Maddie and Jack. And being out this late didn't bother her considering she could defend herself incredibly well.

As she rounded the corner of Fenton Works she spotted him phasing through his bedroom wall. She felt warmth spread through her body and was quickly gone again. She smiled as she saw him stop just outside his house, look up at the sky and take a deep breath.

"Danny!" She called.

He turned around quickly, his own smile lighting up his face. "Sam." He lowed himself to the ground a couple feet from her. "What are you doing here?"

"I uh," Oh gods, she couldn't do it. Butterflies were bouncing all around in her did all her confidence go? "I thought you might be going out tonight to try and find Seraphina and I figured I'd help."

He reached forward and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. "You didn't have too."

She shrugged her shoulders, "I wanted to."

"Well, all right then." He stepped to her side and wrapped an arm around her waist. He waited for her to wrap her own around his waist and then they were off.

The warm air hit her face and she took in a deep breath letting its freshness fill her lungs, "I love it up here."

"Me too." Danny sighed, Sam looked over at him to see him staring at her, "I like it when you're up here with me."

She squeezed his side and kissed his cheek before looking out across the town. "So, where are we looking first?"

"I figured that we'd do a fly-by through the park, then a trip around the school. That seems to be her center."

"You want me to look anywhere else on the ground while you fly?" Those may have been the words that came out of her mouth, but she hoped that he would say 'no' to her idea.

"No, that's okay. It's getting too late, wouldn't want you anywhere by yourself without the Fenton phones or weapons."

Sam rolled her eyes, "Like I couldn't take care of myself. I can whoop your butt any day of the week."

"True." He chuckled, "Doesn't mean I still don't worry."

"You're like a mother hen." She didn't see him roll his eyes, but she could practically hear him.

"You ready to search the park?"

She chuckled, "Let's go."

Sam found it interesting how the rest of their night went. She always felt close to Danny. They had always been close, even when they were little. But tonight. She knew tonight that they had reached their peak. She could feel it. Like energy buzzing all around her. An unstoppable current; not that she wanted it to stop.

In the way they touched, which was almost any given moment. They took every opportunity to kiss each other's cheeks or foreheads. And the way they talked to each other. Sam couldn't believe some of the things that had come from her mouth; she could have sworn she was flirting. And Danny had flirted back.

But even through all that she never once confessed her feelings and they had no luck finding Seraphina. They had searched long and hard, well into the early hours of the morning before deciding to go to bed.

Danny flew her back to her house; she could barely keep her eyes open. She must have gone out of consciousness because one second she was flying over Downtown and the next she was in her bedroom, Danny's voice whispering in her ear.

"Sam. Saaammm. Sam."

"Hmm?" She was too comfortable to move from her position against him.

"You're home."

"Okay."

"Let's get you into bed." He set her down on the floor and held her against him as he pulled back the covers. He picked her up and set her down again and pulled the cover up over her. She snuggled into her pillow already missing the feel of Danny against her.

"Are you good?"

She nodded, but stopped suddenly. She reached behind her with one hand, up her T-shirt and unhooked her bra. She huffed in annoyance as she had to shift from her comfortable position to pull the straps down below the sleeves of her T-shirt. She pulled the left one off first, before taking hold of the right strap and pulling her entire bra out through her sleeve. Sam tossed it to the other side of the room, missing Danny's baffled look. She snuggled back down into her bed, closed her eyes and whispered, "Okay, I'm good now."

Dave gave a breathy chuckle, "Goodnight, Sam." She felt his cool lips kiss her forehead for a few seconds before pulling away. "Love you."

"Love you, too." And then she slipped into a peaceful sleep.

* * *

 **September 11** **th** **, 2014**

 **Thursday**

 **Danny's bedroom**

 **Morning**

The next morning Danny knew that something was off. The happy feeling he felt last night while he was with Sam, felt as if it was a distant memory. He furrowed his brows. Was that real? Or was that a dream?

The way they both acted was typically how he was in his dreams with her. And plus Sam's never been that flirty normally. He swung his legs to the side of the bed and leaned forward on his forearms and stared at his wooden floor. It had to be a dream. What else could it have been? But he could have sworn it was real. He groaned and ran a hand through his hair. Maybe he should just wait and see how Sam acted. Then he'd know.

When he got in Sam's car though, she was acting like herself. The only one acting different was Tucker. He had gotten in the back and had given them a monotonous hello.

"Are you all right?" They both turned around and asked him.

"Yeah." But it was the same blank tone that greeted them.

Sam and Danny shared a look and Sam said, "Seraphina."

"I'll say. I've never seen him like this."

"It's kind of creeping me out."

"When I find her he'll be back to his emotional self."

Sam laughed and something stirred inside him. He wanted to make her laugh again. He wanted to be the only one to make her laugh like that.

"Maybe we could ask her to keep him like this sometimes."

He chuckled, "Yeah, maybe."

The morning moved slowly for the group. But just because it was slow moving, did not mean that things were not happening.

Danny watched them all like a hawk. No matter where he looked when he was with Sam, he could see guys leering at her. He wanted to punch anybody that looked at her twice. But he wasn't sure why he felt this so hard now. Actually he did, but he couldn't choke it down. It took everything in him to hold himself back from getting in their faces. Though, he made sure to give anyone who looked at her, like he wished he could look at her, the fiercest glare he could. A shudder of satisfaction went through him as each one would shrink back and avert their eyes.

But his patience ran out at the end of gym when everyone was changing back into their regular clothes. He had just pulled on a shirt and was about to close his locker when he heard two basketball players walk by. Talking about Sam. And not in the good way.

"Yeah, man." Said Tyler, the taller of the two guys with brown hair. "Have you seen Manson lately? I'd definitely tap that."

Danny was on the move, he heard Tucker get up and follow him.

"Don't do it Danny." But the emotionless voice that cut through his thick skull did nothing but reinforce his reasoning to tell this guy exactly where he could shove it.

"I don't know man," The second guy sounded incredibly nervous, "Isn't she Danny Fenton's girl?"

"And even if she was, what would _Fenton_ do about it? The wimp."

The shorter guy wrung his hands together as they made their way through the door out into the small alcove before it joined the main hallway. Dany close on their heels, he wanted to hear that fear in the guy's voice again.

"He looks so intimidating now. He even towers over you! And I don't know about you man, but with how deep his voice dropped…" he shuddered, "I wouldn't want to cross him."

Danny smiled as he made his way out the door. He was so close to them.

"Whatever man. I still want that feistiness in my bed."

That was it, Danny reached forward, grabbed Tyler by the back of the neck and shoved him face first into the wall and growled, "You wanna say that to my face?"

"Wha–" Tyler tried to push away from the wall, but Danny held him there, gripping his neck tighter. "Okay! Okay!"

"You're _never_ gonna talk about Sam that way again."

"Dude it was just talk I wasn't…" Danny pulled him away from the wall, spun him around, leaving one of Tyler's arms behind him and grabbed him by the front of his shirt and shoved him back into the wall. Tyler winced at the bite in his arm and Danny stared him down. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Tucker standing close by on his PDA and Tyler's friend standing by him practically shaking with fear.

"You will never speak about Sam again. I hear one word. _One word_." He emphasized his point by pushing him further and tightening his hold on his shirt, "You'll be sorry. She's _mine_. You got that? _Mine_."

Tyler nodded his head quickly, "Yeah, yeah man. I gotcha. She's yours. I won't say it… anything again. I swear." Danny could hear the hysteria in his voice and the look of fear in his eyes. He loved this feeling. Why didn't he do this more often?

"Go." Danny growled and let him go. Tyler and his friend ran from the little hallway, not looking back.

"What the hell was that?" Sam's voice startled him. He whirled around to see her standing next to Tucker.

"I had to set a few things straight." Danny folded his arms across his chest.

Sam walked to him and poked her index finger into his chest. "You scared them half out of their wits. And _you_ ," She poked him again, but he only just stared down at her, "don't need to be doing anymore knight in the shining armor acts. _Especially_ for me."

Danny went to open his mouth to respond but two girls walked into their part of the hallway, heading towards the girls locker room. The blonde friend locked eyes with Danny.

"Hey, Danny." She winked and waggled her fingers at him.

"Uh, hi?" Danny said, very confused as to why they were talking to him. Then they were both gone.

Sam growled, catching Danny's attention again. "Gods, I'm getting so sick of that."

"What do you mean?" He furrowed his brows, uncurling his arms.

"Of course you wouldn't have noticed." She scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Girls have been looking at you all freaking day." She paused, "I don't like it."

"Yeah, well, I'm not a fan of what guys are saying about you. And no one should be talking about you like that."

They stared the other down; unconsciously Danny reached up and placed his hand on her cheek. Sam's hand that was still on his chest, curled into his shirt and brought him down closer to her.

And then they were kissing.

It definitely wasn't a fake-out make-out. Their lips moved together softly and unsure at first, then fierce and bruising. Their breaths flowed across the other as they kissed with open mouths. Danny's right hand reached down to wrap around her waist and brought her closer. Sam relished in the coolness of his lips, his cooler touch. Both getting lost for a moment in the other.

It wasn't a long kiss, however. The bell rang loudly in their ears startling them apart.

"You're mine, too." Sam whispered, eyes locked with Danny's blue orbs, iris's wide, almost swallowing the blue.

"You heard that?" She smiled and nodded

"We're going to be late." Tucker interrupted in a monotone voice.

"Let's go." Sam leaned up and kissed him once more and he had to restrain himself to not keep kissing her. He took her hand and they all started on their way to their afternoon classes.

Danny left Sam at her mythology class with another kiss and smiles on both of their faces. So far this was the best day of his life. He told Tucker this, but he only gave him a blank stare and said, "That's only because you and Sam kissed. This day sucks otherwise."

Danny chuckled as he took his seat with Tucker in their government class. "Yeah. Man, I can't believe that actually happened." Tucker only shrugged and the bell to begin class rang.

Danny didn't get to enjoy his happiness for long as his ghost sense passed up from his chest and out his mouth sending shivers up his spine. Thankfully his teacher let him go without hassle. He flew out of the school roof from the bathroom and was instantly hit by a large owl ghost. He went flying to the other side of the building, his vision getting turned all around until he was able to right himself in the air. Damn, he had hoped it was going to be Seraphina.

It didn't take long for him to weaken the owl ghost and suck it up into the thermos. It felt too easy for him truthfully. He wanted to sink his teeth into something deeper.

Luck seemed to be on his side today though, as Seraphina appeared no less than a minute later. "How are we today ghost boy? Well," She paused. "boy isn't exactly the correct term for you now is it?" She folded her arms and smirked at him.

They were hovering down the street from the school. Danny floated a few feet off the ground, thermos still in hand while Seraphina floated a few meters higher in the sky.

Danny clipped the thermos to his belt, folded his arms across his own chest and crinkled his nose, "Are you hitting on me?"

She shrugged, "More like appreciating what's in front of me."

"Okay, gross." He shuddered.

"Well, if that's all there is. I'll be on my way." She waved her fingers and with the other hand reached for the edge of her robe, about to disappear. But Dany couldn't let this opportunity pass and quickly shot an ice ray at her hand, freezing it just before her fingers touched her robe.

"You wanna fight?" She growled, her eyes glowing fiercely green as she stared into his own. "I'll give you a fight."

* * *

 **September 11** **th** **, 2014**

 **Thursday**

 **Casper High: Mythology classroom**

 **1:32 p.m.**

There were 13 minutes left in Sam's mythology class when a green wave encompassed their entire classroom, coating everyone in the light. Her teacher paused in their reading of the myth of Apollo's Stolen Cattle. It was interestingly quiet as the green wave rolled through. After 30 seconds Sam began to feel that familiar warmth roll through from her head to her toes. She felt the jealousy that had been eating away at her all day flow from her with the warm feeling.

She felt normal again and the green wave rolled through the classroom again and was gone. And everything came flooding back to her like a hurricane. From the night before and how her and Danny were flirting back and forth. How her grandma told her that she was envious of her and Danny's relationship. How Tucker was so unlike himself that it was freaking her out. How Danny had looked when he was threatening Tyler. Her and Danny's kiss. Everyone that had looked at him today. There were only a choice few, but she remembered the intense jealousy she had per each one.

She sat staring straight at the blackboard. Her teacher began going over the myth again and student discussion was going on, but it all became background noise. All she could think about was Danny and her kiss. A blush crept up her neck and to her cheeks, a small smile coming to her lips. She couldn't believe that they had kissed like they had. And in front of Tucker no less! Oh gods, she was going to see them both next class. Butterfly's stirred in the pit of her stomach.

What if Danny didn't want to be with her? She frowned and mentally shook her head to rid that thought from her mind. Of course he would want to be with her. Why else would he kiss her? Unless they kissed because of the emotion that Seraphina was making them feel. That thought made the butterfly's shift into grasshoppers. What if he still couldn't…

"Sam?" She was interrupted from her thought process as her teacher appeared in front of her, snapping their fingers in front of her face.

"What?" She blinked into clarity and noticed that the classroom was now being filled with new students.

"Class has ended. You need to get moving to your next one, Sam."

"Oh. Oh right." She packed up her belongings as quickly as she could and rushed out the door practically bumping into Tucker.

"Finally!" He cried. A smile lit up her face at hearing his normal tone of voice. "I thought I was going to have to send in search dogs."

She rolled her eyes, but noticed quickly that Danny wasn't with him as they started making their way to Ghost 101. "Where's Danny?"

"Oh, his ghost sense went off last period. I'm guessing he found Seraphina because I know I'm all back to normal now."

"When have you ever been normal?" She couldn't help the jab; it was nice to feel like herself again.

"Like you would know?" He arched a brow and though she was a little worried about Danny she laughed loudly.

"Oh, I'm so happy you're back."

Tucker laughed himself, "Can you repeat that?" and cupped a hand behind his ear.

She nudged his shoulder with her own, though it was more his upper bicep, "I said it once and I'm never saying it again."

"Eh, it was worth a shot." He shrugged. "So, anymore kissing I need to know about?"

"Tucker!" She looked over at him with wide eyes.

"You were the ones kissing in front of me!" He complained loudly, throwing his hands in the air and barely missed smacking the kid in front of them over the head. "I need more blackmail."

"Need I remind you how much I have on the both of _you two_?" They walked into their classroom and took their seats in the back. Sam placed her book bag in the seat to her left for Danny.

"Which is exactly why I need more on the _two of you_."

She only sighed and rolled her eyes in response. She wanted to tell him about how she was nervous that there might not be a 'two of them', but when the warning bell rang and Danny had yet to show she was growing more worried about him by the second.

"He should have been back by now." Tucker whispered.

"Unless he's hurt."

"Yeah, but typically he's calls or texts us."

"True." Sam pursed her lips, "Or he's hiding from his parents, or fixing himself up, or he ran into another ghost." She shrugged her shoulders, but the worry did not dissipate. "We don't know and it's too late to call him with class starting."

Tucker started to pull out his phone to text him when Agent Z stood up from his desk chair and walked until he stood in front of the class at the most center point. "Class I have some great news to tell you." His smile was too wide for Sam to think it was good news for everyone involved and he stood too straight to be in teacher mode. Her stomach sank. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tucker slide his phone back in his pocket.

"A few minutes ago I received word from another operative. We have captured Phantom and he is being transported as I speak to our facility."

 **September 11** **th** **, 2014**

 **Thursday**

 **Casper High: Ghost 101**

 **1:55 p.m.**

* * *

So? What did you think? I know that Seraphina didn't get a lot of screen time but you'll just have to stay tuned to see what happens with her lol. Also! what about DxS! huh? where are my hardcore DannyxSam shippers out there?

Please let me know what ya'll thought because there are so many people who view this story. The past two chapters together have gotten over 3000 views, so i know there's a bunch of you reading it. If you're going to say something mean please say it in the way of constructive criticism otherwise it will not be tolerated (like flames).

Anyway i'm sure a few of you or more are wondering what's going on at my school and with my car. I'll start with school Things have totally settled down, but I have never been more embarrassed to attend my university. But thankfully there are no more threats and such. Now onto my car! My car has been officially totaled. I'm okay now, my back still hurts however things are much better than they were. We are waiting on a check from our insurance company since we sold them my car and we are going to use that money with a little of our own to get me a new car. We've found a couple in our price range and they're so nice! I really hope i can get this one white 2006 G6 GT hardtop convertible with sable interior and it only has 80,000 miles on it! It is so pretty and hello! who doesn't love convertibles? haha but we still have to wait for the check first.

 ****Review responses!**

 **CaptainDorito:** You were the only one who wanted to know about the lyrics and chapter titles, so I'm going to put it up on the next chapter since I waited to see if anyone else would comment but they didn't. No matter what I'll put that up with the next chapter though.

 **Great:** I don't want to give away anything too much about ghost language however I am creating it by pulling the English word and the German word for it and then creating it myself. There will be other rules that I have made that the words follow such as plurals and he, she it, they, our, your, my and whatever else. But that will come with time :)

 **Randamwriter:** I'm sorry that you don't like Seraphina, could you tell me why? Btw I sent you a PM but you never responded. I'm not sure about what all you're saying in your review. But at the end when you talk about Danny and Sam, well I don't want to spoil anything but I'm a hardcore DxS shipper and this story is slow going for a reason because it expands over a long period of time that have many intricate details. Thanks for your review though!

 **Savirox:** Yes, this is at the end of season 3. Everything has happened except for PP. Sorry that I didn't make that more clear! I kinda forgot to say that in the first chapter lol

 **FowlFanKid13:** Thank you for being concerned about me with my crash. I am fine now. However, they have officially totaled my car which sucks, but that means I can get a new car that's even better than my last one. Thank you so much for your compliments! I really appreciate that and it totally made my day!


	12. Captured

Hey guys! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for all the reviews! I know that i threatened but it still means so much to me to see all your great reviews! Thank you to: **CaptainDorito, Danny Phantom Overlord, Creepy-Pasta, Cato Yugi, ShinyMudkipGal, Great, FandomsAndBandMemes, Savirox, El0ndon, SamXDanny, ShadowDragon357, and rylenosha**. I sadly don't have anything to answer to anybody, but guys i love you all so much! Especially my insanely loyal reviewers: _**CaptainDorito, Danny Phantom Overlord, Great, Savirox adn SamXDanny**_!

At the end of this story i have taken the lyrics from each chapter and explained to you why i have chose these specific lyrics because i know a few people are confused. If you read them i would like in your review to tell me which lyrics you like best and if you want tell me what your initial reaction was to them at the beginning of the chapters :) I'm going to keep up this threatening thing because apparently it works! lol I want a **minimum of 7 reviews** again. I know you guys can do and i love hearing from all of you! Also let me know what you think of this scene!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Mine was delicious and i loved being back home for a bit. But sadly i'm back at school and getting ready for finals. Yuck!

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Danny Phantom or the lyrics from Halsey's - hold me down.

* * *

 **Throw me in the deep end, watch me drown**

 **Knock me out, knock me out**

 **Saying that I want more, this is what I live for**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Captured**

 **Word count: 2,832**

 **11/29/15**

* * *

 **Unknown**

 **Unknown**

 **GIW Headquarters**

 **Unknown**

The first thing Danny registered when he woke up was that he was still in his ghostly form and that he had a splitting headache. The second thing was the hard, ground – no, floor – that he was lying on. He reached up with his hand to feel the back of his head, but when his left hand followed his right he snapped his eyes open. He found his hands in front of him with white type handcuffs that started from his wrist and ended four inches further up his arm, a white metal bar connected the two. Where was he?

Danny looked up from the odd handcuffs and to the room he was laying in to find four bright white walls greeting him. His eyebrows furrowed as he looked closer at the walls trying to find the door, but determined that there couldn't be one as there was no indication that there would be an entrance to his room. He glanced up at the ceiling but was immediately blinded by the bright white light. Danny reached around his head to grab the back of his head as it flared in pain. It was an awkward position, but he didn't care.

The last thing he remembered was his fight with Seraphina. They had fought for thirty minutes before he was able to subdue her. He remembered forcing her to change everyone back to normal and then he sucked her into the thermos when her green wave died down. After that… nothing.

He looked around the room again, noticing that it was much too small for him to stand up in, then down at himself. He was still in his suit, but that didn't make him feel any better. Though Danny was happy that he was now at the stage where he unconsciously could determine when he should stay in his ghost form when he had enough energy, he knew something bad had happened. Staying in his ghost form unconsciously was like when you get hurt and your body knows not to lay a certain way as to not hurt yourself more while you sleep.

The only place he could think of that he was being held in like so, was at the GIW Headquarters. Danny sighed in aggravation. How could he have gotten himself caught? He was always so careful. And now no one knew where he was. Tucker and Sam wouldn't be coming to rescue him for a while. He was positive that they'd be able to determine where he was, but for the time being he'd have to find a way out himself.

Danny powered up his intangibility, but as soon as he tried to access his power he received a shock from his handcuffs. A green light lit up on them before disappearing, leaving them solid white again. He tried all his powers, but each time he received a shock bigger than the next and a green light appearing on the handcuffs. They were able to block his powers. Did that mean he couldn't transform back to his human self? He wanted to try it, but figured there were security cameras in his room and he would not let them have that kind of information.

He pulled himself over to one of the walls and leaned against it. He'd just have to wait till someone came to get him to figure out what he was going to do about escaping. He didn't have to wait long however, as five or so minutes later a hiss sounded from the wall farthest from him and an opening appeared. Three GIW Agents waited on the other side, looking as intimidating as a Rottweiler.

"Let's go, Phantom." The one in front said in a gruff voice.

"Yeah, I'm going to have to say 'no', to this field trip boys. But thanks for the offer." He was _not_ going to go quietly.

The Agent pulled out what looked like a remote control. He typed something in and a large shock wave surged up through Danny's arms and down into his body. He clenched his teeth together so hard, he swore he heard one of them crack.

"What was that?" The Agent asked.

Once he had his breathing back in control he stood as best he could, hunched over and made his way out the door. Why was it that everyone resorted to shock therapy with him? Didn't they all know how he died? Well, he guessed that the GIW had no idea. It's not like he shouted it out whenever he met someone new. But still!

The hallway was just as bright white as his room was. Danny figured that was probably why they wore black sunglasses all the time, so they wouldn't go crazy from all the white surrounding them. He looked to his left and found that the hallway ended in a couple feet. To his right it was like he was in the real life version of The Shining. The three agents moved around him before pushing him down the hallway. It smelled too clean, Danny decided. Much too clean. Like everything was cleaned with bleach. His stomach flipped.

When they reached the end of the hallway they turned left and Danny thought he was never so happy to see another color besides white and black. At the end of this new hallway were silver elevator doors and silver buttons stationed on the wall next to it. After waiting a few seconds after pushing the elevator down button, the door opened to reveal the inside of the elevator where Danny was pushed inside, the Agents standing guard in front of him. He looked over at the control panel as quick as he could and saw that there were 9 levels to this place: 3, 2, 1, SB0, SB1, SB2, SB3, SB4, and SB5.

The guard chose SB3 and the elevator moved down. Danny counted the dings to figure out where he was being held and counted two before the elevator stopped. So his holding cell was on SB1. Before the doors could open he decided to try his chance at escaping.

Danny swung his arms into the head of the Agent with the gruff voice that stood in front of him. At the same time he kicked out with his left leg to hit the Agent on his left in the stomach. Both went down. He used his momentum to attack the third and last Agent, however a shock wave made his body spasm and he collapsed to the floor. He groaned, his body hurting in places he almost forgot he had.

The Agent that shocked him didn't care. The elevator doors opened, she grabbed him by the rod on his handcuffs and dragged his body down the hallway. "Two of our Agents are down. Please take them to the infirmary." She told a passing Agent and continued to haul him down the ever present white hallway he couldn't escape from. Through his half-hooded eyes he saw many people walking around with white coats on instead of the usual suit. Oh. Shit.

They were in the labs.

He was not dragged far down the hall. The Agent stopped at a door and pulled out a key card and slid it into a numbered pad. She entered a code, before a door hissed open and drug him inside. He groaned when he saw these walls were blinding white as well. Seriously, didn't they know of any other color choices? The table was silver, as were the two chairs that were stationed on either side.

She forced him in one of the chairs. His arms strapped to the table, with the handcuffs still attached. His legs were cuffed to his chair and then his chest was strapped back into the chair as well.

"Love the comfort you provide. Do you do this for everyone, or just me?" But she didn't condone his snarky comment with a response. She finished up and then she was gone and the door was shut.

The interrogation room he sat in looked similar to the ones he'd been in already and the ones he'd seen on TV. There was a one-way window opposite him, the lights were too brightly lit, and there were cameras in each corner of the room. Well, he definitely wasn't going to be able to escape so easily from this room. Plus, he kind of wanted to know what they wanted from him. Of course he knew that they wanted to study him, but he was never given information besides the fact they wanted to capture him and perform painful experiments on him.

Danny was pretty sure he waited there twenty minutes before the doors opened again. A large Hispanic man entered. He reminded Danny of Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, except Hispanic. He could see a jagged white scar on the Agents neck and a pink puffed up scar run from his forehead to his right ear, where ½ of that ear was gone.

"I'm Agent Mendoza." Is all the man said before taking his seat in the other chair and placed his folded hands on the table.

Danny waited for him to say something else, but nothing came from the man's mouth. He mentally smirked. They were playing the waiting game. See if he would ask the right questions or reveal things that they wanted without having the interviewer do any talking. He did this with some of the trickier ghosts, and he's seen Walker do it time and time again to many a ghost. Danny let a smirk cover his face knowing this would be the only way to get under Agent Mendoza's skin.

Danny counted out another fifteen minutes before he yawned. "You know if we're not going to talk, what was the point in bringing me here?" He finally said. He had contemplated what he wanted to say, spending for the first time in a long time, specific thought into what he was going to say so he wouldn't give anything away.

"Tired?"

"Bored." He deadpanned. He almost chuckled as he remembered Tucker sounding like that just this afternoon. Wait… was it Thursday night? What if it was longer? He had no way to figure out what time it was. And Danny had no idea when he woke up.

"Something troubling you?"

He frowned before smiling quickly. He had to make sure not to slip like that. "Just wondering the time. I've got a hot date."

"With who, might I inquire?" The Agent moved forward slightly.

"None of your business."

He moved back to his previous position. "I see. Since it is common knowledge that ghosts do not date, I am going to take your lie as tactic you use for covering up what troubles you."

Danny couldn't believe this. The guy sounded as if he was the nicest person in the world, all the while calling him on his bullshit. Not that it was good, but still. He had to be trying to get Danny on his good side, so he would open up. That's what it had to be. No way would a GIW Agent _ever_ be this nice to a ghost. _Especially_ him.

"How are you doing Phantom?"

The question caught him off guard. "Really? That's what you're starting with?"

"It's a simple question."

Danny stayed silent. No more talking for him. Now that he got Agent Mendoza to talk, he wasn't going to answer anything anymore. Okay, that's a lie, he'd probably throw in a few snappy comments but that's it.

Agent Mendoza asked him a few more 'pleasantry' questions and told him a few pieces of information about himself; Danny learned that he was the head director of this facility. But after that, that was when the 'nice' questions stopped. He started asking about the Ghost Zone: the energy that lives there, the ghosts that stay there, the language. But Danny kept his mouth shut on all accounts.

When this didn't work Agent Mendoza started asking him questions about himself. Why does he fight other ghosts? Why has he claimed the school, the park and other areas? What significance did they have to him? How did he die? Danny took great offence to that. In the Zone that was a serious social don't. What does he do to sustain himself? How much human emotion does he take on a normal day to survive? Does he take more than a normal ghost and is that why he acts so human all of the time?

Danny stayed quiet throughout the interrogation. He wanted to give them a few snappy comebacks and to tell them off for asking how he died, but he kept his mouth shut. It was hard for him, but he decided that even if he spoke those comebacks then he'd be giving in to what they wanted. Even if it wasn't directly what they wanted.

"Alright then." Agent Mendoza finally sighed out. "If you are unwilling to cooperate with us then something will be done." He rose from his seat and exited the door leaving Danny alone once again in the room.

He scoffed, how could they have believed that he was going to give up that information so easily? He knew that they were going to torture it out of him, but he knew he'd rather die fully than tell them what they wanted. Of course though, if he had to sit in this room of all white for another minute he'd have gone too insane to probably remember what he should or shouldn't say.

Sadly, it took another twenty minutes until the door slid back open and three new operatives came to fetch him. They took him down another series of hallways where he was then taken into a room that housed a steel examination table, an overhead light and surgical instruments laid out to the left on a rolling cart.

Shit. He felt a fight or flight instinct kick in and he tried to run. Tried to fight his way out, but was shocked almost to unconsciousness again.

They picked him up and carelessly put him on the table. While one of the Agents held down his shoulders, the others made sure that his ankles were strapped down and his waist was as well. They added another metal strap that came from the table around his neck before they took off the handcuffs. He was too tired to go intangible at the moment and wished he had as they strapped his wrists to the table as well before pressing a button somewhere he couldn't see on the table, a flash of green illuminated from his wrists and he knew he wouldn't be able to use his power again.

He didn't have to wait long after the three Agents disappear for Agent Mendoza and an Agent donning a lab coat to show up in his little hell. The Agent in the lab coat did not introduce himself, though he was pushing a cart with a cloth over it. Danny knew that whatever was under there was not going to end well for him.

"Are you comfortable Phantom?" Agent Mendoza questioned him. Danny saw him press a button on what he thought was a recording device before putting it down on a rolling table beside him.

"Oh yeah, just peachy." He was able to quip back. His mouth tasted like metal and ectoplasm. He was pretty sure that the ectoplasm taste was because his mouth was bleeding.

"Then we can begin part two of our interrogation."

"The torturing part?" He swallowed his rising fear.

"If I didn't know better I would have thought, that to be your _own_ thought." Agent Mendoza grabbed something from the table of instruments next to him. "What makes you so different?" A blade quickly flashed in the light and he felt the cool blade touch the skin at his throat.

He wanted to panic. Start hyperventilating. That's what any sane person would do if they were about to die. Because he had no other reason to believe that Agent Mendoza would not slice his throat open. Answers or not. A full ghost would only _think_ they were dead. But him? Danny was fairly certain he would die this time and would _not_ be coming back.

When Danny refused to answer his question, Agent Mendoza moved the blade up and a little to the left before cutting a straight line down into his collarbone. He could tell it wasn't deep, but his skin burned where it touched before the feeling was gone. He wondered if this was where they always started their interrogations; with the easier things?

"That tickled." Danny mouthed off. He knew it was going to get worse. What did it matter if he let his sarcasm run wild?

"Oh, don't worry." The director gave a laugh that sent chills down his spine, "It was supposed to."

 **Unknown**

 **Unknown**

 **GIW Headquarters: Lab**

 **Unknown**

* * *

Hey guys so don't forget to review! i love to hear what you have to say.

Below i have the reasoning's behind the lyrics i chose and i'd love to hear what you have to say about it! Sorry if you don't want to, but it gets kind of long.

Chapter lyrics:

 **Ch. 1 - Complicated: None**

 **Ch. 2 – Straight for the Castle: Halsey - Castle**

 **I'm headed straight for the castle /**

 **They've got the kingdom locked up**

Upon listening to Halsey's Castle I knew that this would be best for the second chapter. In the second chapter if you don't remember we learn through Agent Z who had learned along with the rest of the GIW from Plasmius (though that information is not given how Plasmius has told them), that Danny is to be the new Ghost King. Now through the entire song 'Castle' I did not take Halsey's meaning of this song into my story. I chose the words specifically because I liked the way they presented the idea of Danny being Ghost King at this point in time. The first phrase 'I'm headed straight for the castle' demonstrates to me Danny being told that he is to be the new Ghost King. He's on his way to the castle in a figurative sense. The second phrase 'They've got the kingdom locked up' is important to Danny because at the moment he's trying to figure out if he truly is the Ghost King. He's keeping the kingdom – the idea that he's the ghost king- locked up in his mind because he doesn't want to believe that he is the ghost king.

 **Ch. 3 Swimming with the sharks: Panic! At the Disco – Vegas Lights**

 **Where villains spend the weekend**

 **The deep end**

 **We're swimming with the sharks until we drown**

Now chapter 3 is when Team Phantom goes out to figure out what the GIW are up to for the first time and head to the far frozen to find out about their opinion on Danny being Ghost King. The title 'Swimming with the Shark' should be clear. But the Sharks are the GIW and the verb swimming is to demonstrate that they are going into uncharted territory and it's dangerous.

'Where villains spend the weekend' phrase shows the villains as the GIW, and 'where they spend the weekend' is the GIW headquarters that Danny and Sam find. 'The deep end' is again the GIW headquarters, but it is also to show how Danny and Sam are inside the headquarters where it's not territory they know even though they know how to survive it. 'We're swimming with the sharks until we drown' this phrase represents the fact that no matter what Team Phantom will have to deal with the sharks – GIW – until something happens on either side. Also the last line can be used to represent that Danny as Ghost King will have to deal with the ghosts who do not want him to be Ghost King and something may happen to him if he does take up the job of Ghost King, drowning him in the expectations.

 **Ch. 4 – Miserable & Magical: Taylor Swift - Fifteen**

 **Well count to ten, take it in**

 **This is life before you know who you're gonna be**

The summary of Chapter 4 was the ending to their trip to the Far Frozen and then Chaser coming on to scene as well as them seeing another ad for Vlad's campaign. The title demonstrates the word 'miserable' for Danny being miserable about not having yet a definite of whether or not he's to be the Ghost King and about Vlad doing his campaigning and knowing that no matter what he'll be mayor again. The word 'magical' is to show the magical component that Chaser has and uses in this chapter and the next.

The lyrics I chose were mainly to focus on Danny and the struggle for the Ghost King position. The first line is supposed to show him trying to take in the idea that all these ghosts believe him to be the ghost king and that he probably is the ghost king. Then the second line is demonstrating the fight with Chaser and his thoughts on Vlad and that this will be how he determines who he is as the Ghost King. To find himself.

 **Ch. 5 – Remote Controlled: Imagine Dragons - Polaroid**

 **I'm a midnight talker**

 **Oh I'm an alley walker**

 **I'm a day late two face**

 **I'm a burn out quick pace**

The summary of Chapter 5 is when the students are in the universe of Chaser's and then when they get out and he is captured by Danny. The title is the showing of Chaser's remote he uses to control people and turn them into people from movies and TV Shows. The lyrics came together as a whole to represent Chaser. The first line 'I'm a midnight talker' shows him to be someone who stays up late and gets into long conversations over his games or movies and TV Shows. The second line 'Oh I'm an alley walker' shows that he's reckless but also alone. The third line 'I'm a day late two face' he's hypocritical of things showing he goes with whoever he decides at the time is better. The last line 'I'm a burn out quick pace' for me represented that he burns out quickly which is why he was seen as someone who lived in his parent basement because he couldn't hold a job.

 **Ch. 6 - Breathe:**

 **Panic! At the Disco – The End of All Things**

 **Many things will change**

 **But the way I feel**

 **Will remain the same**

Chapter 6 summary: they send Chaser off, background on Ida Manson, and the day before Jazz leaves for college. I chose the title 'Breathe' because we're taking a breath before everything really begins in the story. This is the last calm chapter before things start heating up. I also chose this name because things are easier at the moment for the Team.

The lyrics are showing the relationship between Danny and Jazz – even though that it brought forward in the next chapter I really wanted to show that even here they are still close. 'Many things will change' shows how Jazz is going off to college and things at home and in their lives are going to change because of this. "But the way I feel' both Jazz and Danny 'Will remain the same' are going to love each other no matter what happens.

 **Ch. 7 – A Phone Call Away: Whitney Houston & CeCe Winans – Count on Me**

 **Count on me through thick and thin**

 **A friendship that will never end**

 **When you are weak I will be strong**

 **Helping you to carry on**

 **Call on me, I will be there**

 **Don't be afraid**

 **Please believe me when I say**

 **Count on me**

The summary: Jazz and Danny have a heart to heart. Then they take Jazz off to college. The chapter title "A Phone Call Away" represents the statement Jazz makes saying that she is only a phone call away and that no matter what she will always be there for Danny and all he has to do is call. The lyrics represent how close they have become since she found out about him and that he can always count on her no matter how far away they are from each other.

 **Ch. 8 - Phoenix: Panic! At the Disco – Emperor's New Clothes**

 **Welcome to the end of eras**

 **Ice has melted back to life**

 **Done my time and served my sentence**

 **Dress me up and watch me die**

 **If it feels good, tastes good it must be mine**

 **Dynasty decapitated**

 **You just might see a ghost tonight**

Chapter 8 summary: The fight with Aragon at Dora's castle. The chapter title Phoenix comes from the definition 'a person or thing regarded as uniquely remarkable in some respect'. This person is wanted to represent is Dora. She is seen as a phoenix, not just with this definition but rising from the abuse of her brother and becoming someone that can lead her kingdom into a better, healthier time.

The lyrics are actually representing both Aragon and the ghost he speaks of that no one knows about. 'Welcome to the end of eras' shows how Aragon wants to end what is this peace going on in his own kingdom and also what may be the focus of the new ghost. 'Ice has melted back to life' shows the Aragon has come back. "Done my time and served my sentence" is for Aragon of course – though he hasn't served his time yet, I figured it was still good for the chapter. 'Dress me up and watch me die' is actually a line that will be a focus for something everyone will learn later but I'm sure you can guess given what I said at the beginning of this paragraph. "it feels good, tastes good it must be mine" this shows Aragon's greed over the kingdom and believes that he should have it back. 'Dynasty decapitated' this line represents how Aragon's dynasty is gone and Dora's has risen. 'You might just see a ghost tonight' the word ghost is supposed to represent the fact that they were never to see Aragon again and he would be something unexpected and unreal.

 **Ch. 9 The End is the Beginning: Halsey - Gasoline**

 **And all the people say**

 **"You can't wake up, this is not a dream**

 **You're part of a machine, you are not a human being**

 **With your face all made up, living on a screen**

 **Low on self esteem, so you run on gasoline"**

Chapter 9 Summary: They are getting better, they also go over what the Observants said and they try to talk to Clockwork. The title 'The End is the Beginning' is used to represent Danny's end to the thought that he probably is not the Ghost King and the beginning of a new journey that he was not prepared to take.

The lyrics are representing this. I know that a lot of my lyrics represent Danny and being Ghost King but this story has a large focus on this so that's why. "And all the people say" these are the ghosts in the zone that believe him to be the king. "You can't wake up, this is not a dream" that no matter what Danny is accepting that this will be his fate. "With your face all made up, living on a screen" now it took me a bit to understand why I like this line so much for this part and about keeping it in the lyrics, but I finally figured out that it's as though no matter what Danny is putting up a front with everyone except a few people (ghosts too) and being made Ghost King will be as if he has another front to put on. "Low on selfesteem, so you run on gasoline" Danny is so sure that he would not be a good Ghost King and the gasoline signifies everyone backing him up and pushing him to think that he would be even though he doesn't seem to want to.

 **Ch. 10 – Emotional Language: Panic! At the Disco - Victorious**

 **I'm like a scarf trick, it's all up the sleeve**

 **I taste like magic, waves that swallow quick and deep**

 **Throw the bait, catch the shark, bleed the water red**

 **Fifty words for murder and I'm every one of them**

Summary: The team learns about Ghost Language through the GIW, Danny and Valerie fight, Dash is acting funny and a new ghost Seraphina comes into the picture. The title for this chapter emotional language is two parts. 'emotional' for Seraphina and 'Language' for the ghost language. The lyrics are for Seraphina's character.

"I'm like a scarf trick, it's all up the sleeve" represents her sneakiness and her ability to pull off any emotion while unseen. "I taste like magic, waves that swallow quick and deep" the emotion that is her magic touch and she pulls this off by using waves of emotions that are quick and take root from emotions someone is already feeling. "Throw the bait, catch the shark, bleed the water red" The bait is the emotion someone already feels deep down, catching the shark is the person she wants to inflict more of any emotion onto and make them feel a new emotion if she wants to, bleeding the water red is the aftermath these emotions create and sometimes how crazy it can be. "Fifty words for murder and I'm every one of them" this last line shows how tricky Seraphina can be and then how lethal she is towards you and you towards anyone you come in contact with if you are experiencing her bad emotions.

 **Ch. 11 Losing Control: Halsey - Drive**

 **All we do is drive**

 **All we do is think about the feelings that we hide**

 **All we do is sit in silence waiting for a sign**

Chapter 11 summary: You just read it!

The title "Losing Control" shows how Danny and Sam are losing control over their reasons to not state that they love each other. That they have no control and it makes it easier to admit their feelings to each other. "All we do is think about the feelings that we hide" is supposed to represent that Danny and Sam think about the other a lot and how they love each other. "All we do is sit in silence waiting for a sign" they are each waiting for a sign from the other for their feelings to be admitted which is shown in this chapter when Danny has the run-in with Tyler. But now they are still waiting for a sign from each other.


	13. 32936

Hey guys! Thank you so much for your reviews! **CaptainDorito, ShinyMudkipGal,SamXDanny, Savirox, Great** and **KoriCarrigan**! I love you guys so much!

**Notes to Reviewers after story: **CaptainDorito, SamXDanny** and **Savirox.**

Now I just want to forewarn you guys that I've only written a few fight/ action scenes before in my life. I know that I'm not very good at it, but I've done the best I can do! If anyone wants to help me out I'd be more than happy to talk it out with you because this story will have more action/ fight scenes (Spoiler). If anyone is confused about a certain thing that happened or needs clarification please say so either in a review or PM me!

I am so happy to see that you all love the lyrics! I've decided that every ten chapters I will post my reasoning behind chapter lyrics. Since I went a little far on this one I'll post them when we reach chapter 20, that way it's on an even number.

I understand that some of you might not want to read this chapter because of it's length, but then again I like these extra-long chapters but I keep them shorter because most people get sick of 11,000 worded chapters after a while. **If you would prefer the 8,000-12,000 length chapters though please speak up in a review!**

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Danny Phantom or the lyrics from the song 'This is Gospel' by Panic! At the Disco

* * *

 **The gnashing teeth and criminal**

 **Tongue's conspire against the odds**

 **But they haven't seen the best of us yet**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: 32936**

 **Word count: 10,442**

 **12/6/15**

* * *

 **September 11** **th** **, 2014**

 **Thursday**

 **Sam's car**

 **2:51 p.m.**

"Slow down." Tucker demanded as he held on to the passenger side door. Sam didn't respond. She kept her eyes forward, focused on the road, hands gripping the steering wheel so tight her knuckles turned white. "Speed is not going to change anything except _us_ getting in a car wreck and then we can't help Danny."

That seemed to get her attention and she slowed down slightly. Tucker breathed a sigh of relief and uncurled his hand from the door. Sam didn't say anything as they pulled up to Fenton Works, glad to see the Fenton RV gone. She parked, was out of the car and halfway to the door before Tucker finished unbuckling.

When Tucker found her she was in the weapons room looking at a wall of weapons from guns to knives to fighting sticks. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to figure out the best weapons for us to use to take down the GIW."

"Sam." When she didn't answer he called again.

"What?" She didn't turn around to look at him though, keeping up her search over the weapons. Her phone started ringing; shooting off the tune of some heavy metal band he hadn't heard of. But he did know the tune and who was calling.

"Your phone is ringing." What he was going to say decided to stay in his mind after all. She didn't respond again and pulled a Fenton ectoblade off the shelf to examine. "Sam!" He yelled, his anger and worry getting the best of him. He strode forward and pulled her phone from the back pocket of her jeans, "Your phone."

She finally turned to look at him and he saw so many emotions in her eyes he had trouble keeping up. But the fog that seemed to have fallen over her lifted and she reached for her phone and hit the answer button before putting it to her ear. "Finally, Jazz."

Sam reached out her arms and pulled Tucker into a hug. He wasn't as shocked as he should have been. He knew… hell, everyone knew that Sam was _not_ a hugger. She hugged when she felt it appropriate and only if she knew you well enough. Meaning she only gave hugs to her grandma, him and Danny and sometimes Jazz or Dani. Yeah, this was a huggable moment, but not from someone like Sam. And that's when he came to the realization that he would have to be their rock this time around instead of Sam. This was hitting them both hard, and for some reason – Tucker wasn't sure if it was because her and Danny admitted their feelings to each other or not – Sam could not hold them all together this time.

As Tucker thought this over, Sam told Jazz what happened all the while staying in their hug. The second Sam stopped talking Jazz spoke up saying only one sentence,

"I'll be there in three and a half hours." before she hung up.

Sam wrapped her other arm around Tucker and they stayed there for a few minutes. Sam's head tucked under his chin, arms tight around each other.

"I knew this was going to happen." She whispered.

"What?" Tucker pulled his head up and looked down at her. "There's no way you could have known. We couldn't have stopped this."

She looked up at him and he could see tears misting in her eyes. "No. But we know that the GIW is here and that they wanted Danny. That they'd do whatever they could to get to Danny."

"It's gonna be okay. We're going to get Danny back and he'll be fine."

"No he won't."

"Okay, no he won't. But, he _will_ be."

They stood in silence again, staring at the other, still in their hug. Sam averted her eyes and laid her head back on his chest. "What is _wrong_ with me? I feel like I'm having an out of body experience."

"You're scared." He could tell she was about to protest so he pressed on, "I am too."

She let out a long sigh. "We've been scared before."

"Not like this. This is different."

They stood in silence for a few more minutes before Sam broke it again. "Thank you."

"Of course." He knew she was thanking him for more than the talk they just had. But for stepping up into her place because she couldn't do it this time. He kissed the top of her head and slowly pulled out of the hug. "Now, come on let's go and see what we can find on the GIW. And food. I definitely need food."

Sam chuckled and he pretended to _not_ see her wipe her eyes. "Alright, alright. You go make us food and I'll fire up the laptop."

They didn't find much again on the GIW, so they spent the time waiting for Jazz, coming up with different plans on how to infiltrate their headquarters and what weapons they needed to bring. Jazz showed up three hours later around 8 o'clock. Tucker and Sam were sitting up in Danny's room with a notebook going back and forth between them. The door burst open startling them both; causing them to stand up in a fighting stance until they saw the familiar red hair of Jazz and knew it was okay.

They each received a 'Fenton' hug before Jazz pulled away and was all business. "What do we have so far?"

"Well, not much to be honest." Tucker said sadly. "We only know a few things. But me and Sam were talking and we think it's best to see if we can actually find their headquarters and what we're up against."

"Why didn't you go earlier?"

"We wanted you to get a first look too. But we've made scenarios and figured out which weapons would be best and what we would do if we got caught." Sam told her.

"Good, good. So you know where to look then?"

"Yeah." Jazz grabbed her keys back out of her purse, "The road… tunnel where Danny and I had been chased by them."

They loaded up Jazz's car and Sam gave her directions to the spot of the rising road. It would have been silent the entire ride except for Jazz's constant babbling. She spoke of everyday things and her week of classes so far and the food in the dining hall to keep her mind and hopefully the others on a happier track.

It was hard to find the exact spot in the dark. Actually it was impossible. But Sam knew they were on the right road. Instead of trying to find the entrance to the tunnel, they drove further down the road to try and find an actual building that the GIW might be using. They didn't have to drive down the road for long. About a mile or two when a clearing opened up on the right. A group of buildings stood together, around five, however only one of them was lit up brightly and had guards surrounding it.

"Found it." They all said.

Jazz slowed down just enough for them to observe the area. A chain link fence with two rows of barbed wire seemed to surround the area and blocked off the dirt road that led to the building. It looked as though it were a prison with a ghost shield surrounding the building. There were a couple dozen vehicles and even more men surrounding the building and the inside of the fence. They could see video cameras set up along the fence. The dirt road had bright lights lighting the path with someone stationed at each post. And then their vision was obscured by trees again.

"We need to go back." Tucker said immediately, "I want to look at the gate."

"What!" Jazz turned to look at him in the back seat, before quickly looking back at the road. "Are you kidding?"

"No. Just stop right here."

"No way! Not going to happen. We have nothing just in case something happens."

"Come on Jazz, we'll be fine." Sam chimed in.

"No. No way. It's bad news."

"Jazz." Sam's voice was hard. "Pull over."

It took a few seconds, but she relented and pulled the car over to the side of the road. It was too creepy for her liking. "Fine. But, if we get arrested I'm blaming you and telling them I was captured and forced to do your bidding."

Sam laughed, "Don't worry we'll keep your name out of it."

"Did you bring your phone?" Tucker asked before Jazz could snap back.

"Yeah. Why?"

"In case we need you to bail us out." Sam chuckled again and got out of the car.

Jazz sighed and rolled her eyes.

"You never know." Tucker told her before he followed his best friend out of the car. Jazz groaned and let her head fall against the top of the steering wheel. They were going to be the death of her.

Outside of the car, Tucker produced a flashlight from his phone and they began to trek back to the headquarters. They didn't talk as they walked but Tucker knew that Sam was coming up with ideas to try and get inside the facility.

It took them ten minutes to reach the main gate; the fence had stayed up their entire walk. Tucker told her that they needed to look for something that looked similar to a fuse box – though he said that that's not what it was – so he could hook up into their systems. Or at least their outside systems. They did their best to stay in the shadows of the trees so they would be out of range of the cameras. After searching up and down the fence they hadn't found anything, they knew that they had to cross over to the other side of the gate to search the fence. They had to walk back a bit towards the car before crossing the road and staying in the dark as to not be seen. Surprisingly it didn't take them long to find the box that Tucker needed. It was close to the fence, but fell just inside the shadows of the trees.

Tucker pulled out his PDA and hooked it up to an output source. It took a bit for him to hook into the systems but soon his PDA had downloaded everything he needed for the outside lights, fences and cameras and the ghost shield. He was now able to use his PDA to shut it all down. It was a lot more than he was expecting and grinned at the idiotic GIW agents. They were incredibly stupid to keep this so far from where they all were. But their loss was his and Sam's gain.

Sam was ecstatic to hear what Tucker was able to find, "Are you able to access any of their other information?"

He shook his head, "No, not from this source. To do that I'd need to hook up to a computer inside. Then I could get to the main frame."

She smiled and Tucker knew that in the way her lips pulled up at the side of her mouth that she had a plan. "I think I have an idea." She confirmed his thought and pulled out her phone sending a quick text to Jazz to tell her that they were going to try their hand at getting into their headquarters and to not call or text either of them unless they did so first.

After she gave her phone to Tucker to secure in one of his many pockets she yanked her pony tail out of her hair, tipped her head over and shook it out. She ran her hands through it before standing up again; her black hair in disarray. Sam pulled her pocket knife out of her boot, "I'll get you a new one." Was all she told him before she used it to cut a part of Tucker's jacket at the bottom by the zipper, making it look as though it had been ripped apart rather than cut.

"What the hell Sam?" He whisper shouted.

"I told you I had an idea." She reached down and picked up some dirt before tossing a bit on her knees and on her clothes. "Put some dirt on you."

"Why?" though he asked, he still did as she instructed.

"Because we're going to try and get in there by saying that we were in a car accident. Our car hit a tree after swerving to miss a deer and your phone is dead and I lost mine so we walked down the road to get help."

"Oh." He put Crystal – his phone – into a pocket. "What about my PDA?"

"Well you can't exactly text or call people on it, so it's good to have out. But if we do get inside, I'm going to fake an injury and then while they check over me, you're going to say that you have to go to the bathroom, when really you're going to…"

"Find a computer and see what I can find."

"Exactly." She nodded, "Now what do you think would be a better injury, a knee or elbow?"

"Knee. It'll take them longer to get it checked over if you play it well enough." She shot him a glare, "And plus, it's more reasonable that your knee would get hurt rather than your arm if the car crashed head first into a tree."

She nodded and took a few steps to practice her hobbling. When Tucker gave her the okay that it was believable they made their way back to the fence. They banged on it and hit the call button and saw many of the men and women turn their heads toward them. But instead of one of them coming to their aid, a truck made its way to the gate, stopping far enough so the gate could open after making a buzzing sound.

"Are you kids okay?" An Agent asked them as she got out of the passenger side of the truck.

"Our car crashed into a tree about a mile down the road and I think my friend has a sprained knee."

The Agent looked over them – at least that's what they thought because she had on her sunglasses – before pulling a device from her belt. She waved it over Sam first, a single beep resonated from the device and flashed a green light before she waved the device over Tucker and it happened again. "You're clean. I'm Agent Castle and you are?"

"I'm Sam and this is Tucker."

"Nice to meet you. Now, come on we'll bring you up to our headquarters and get you both looked over." She moved to help Sam, who gritted her teeth and accepted the help even though she normally wouldn't have.

It was maybe a 30 second drive to the building, but Sam could have sworn it took longer. Agent Castle helped them both inside the white double front doors to the short office like building. When they entered they were hit with white upon white. Which they should have expected considering it was the GIW but it still came as a shock to see the room. There were two Agents sitting at a long desk in front of them, typing away on their computers, sunglasses on and not paying attention to them.

She brought them over to the chairs that sat against the right wall. A medical team came rushing through the one and only hallway open along the left wall and rushed around them. Tucker insisted that he was alright and to focus on Sam, but they would have none of that.

Of course they were done checking him over before they were done with Sam. She made all the right sounds when they checked her knee and told them how she had trouble putting weight on it. They asked her if they would like her to x-ray it, that it would take no longer than twenty minutes. Sam said sure and they got a white wheel chair for her and took her down the hallway.

Agent Castle stayed with him and asked if he had anyone to call. Tucker nodded and said that he had her number in his PDA he just needed a phone because his was dead and they were unable to find Sam's after the wreck. She handed him her cell phone and he pulled out his PDA as a show because he had Jazz's number mesmerized.

"Hello?" Her voice was unsure.

"Hey, so I know that you weren't going to Springfield with us, but it looks like we aren't either. Our car kind of crashed into a tree or two and now me and Sam are stuck. I'm using a Guy's in White cell phone right now to call you." He had to admit that Jazz played her part well in case the calls were recorded. She told him that she would be there in thirty minutes before hanging up.

"Thank you." Tucker told her as he handed back her cell phone. Then he took a glance down at himself, "Do you happen to have a bathroom I could use? I would really like to get rid of this dirt."

Agent Castle chuckled and pointed down the hall. "Follow the hall all the way down and the bathrooms are on your left. If you hit the elevator you've gone too far."

"Thank you." He said again before following her directions. He easily found the bathroom and a couple of empty offices with their doors open. He quickly went into the bathroom and washed what he could off his face, hands and arms and part of his clothes – though he knew it would just be best to throw them in the washer. He peeked his way out the bathroom door to see that the hall was empty before making his way to the nearest open door. He found it strange that the three office doors that were open had been empty. But he didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth. Thankfully the office was a few steps from the bathroom in case anything would happen.

It was five minutes later that he was downloading everything from their systems with the words: ghost, report, Phantom, ghost shield, blue prints, and codes. Seven minutes passed when he heard the elevator ding. He knew he didn't have everything that they wanted but he had enough that they could figure out a plan. The elevator dinged again and he knew it would be any second before it opened on his floor. Pulling out the cord to the computer, quickly making sure everything was saved to his PDA before he did, he heard the swoosh of the elevator doors opening and made a mad dash to the hallway. He shoved the PDA in his pocket just in time for the doctors to come out, pushing Sam in the wheel chair they had taken her down in.

He turned around, pretending to have only been walking back from the bathroom, "Sam."

"Hey Tuck." Her eyes were a little too wide and he wondered what it was that she had seen.

"What's the verdict?" he questioned as they caught up and he began walking in step with them. He looked down to see that they had put a brace around her knee that went from mid-shin to mid-thigh.

"No broken bone thankfully. But they're pretty sure that I sprained my knee."

"That sucks."

"You're telling me." She groaned. He wanted to laugh because even though she was faking the injury, her reaction was as normal as anything else that he couldn't help but find it funny.

"Maybe it'll heal quick." He shrugged as they entered the receptionist area again.

"Hey guys." Jazz's voice drifted to their ears and they looked up to see the red head standing by the front doors with Agent Castle.

"Has it already been 30 minutes?" Tucker looked down at his watch but noticed that only 22 minutes had passed.

"I made good time." She shrugged. "Plus it wasn't a very hard place to find." She turned to Agent Castle and smiled her most polite smile that she reserved for people she hated with a burning passion. "Thank you for taking care of my friends."

"It was no trouble at all. We help anyone that needs it." She gave a polite smile back.

"I'm parked right outside. You ready to go?"

They both nodded. "Thank you again for your hospitality." Sam said rising from the chair with help and was handed crutches.

"You're welcome." Agent Castle looked as though she was beginning to tire of saying that to them. "I hope your car will be easily fixed."

"Me too." She said and started towards the door. Tucker stuck close to her as did Jazz. Once they were in the car they drove at a reasonable pace towards the gate, even though they wanted to get out of there as quickly as they could. As soon as they were through the gates and past the lights illuminating the area Sam spoke up.

"He tried to escape."

"What?" Tucker and Jazz yelled. Jazz jerked the wheel, but quickly straightened the car not wanting to _actually_ hit a tree.

"Yeah, when I was in the infirmary there were two men laying on cots and they were telling me as I waited for the stupid x-rays," she reached down and started to unstrap the knee brace. "That they should have kept a better eye on Phantom. That he tried to kill them both to escape from the elevator as they took him down to interrogate him. But they said that they were lucky that another Agent was on her toes, and shocked him into unconsciousness."

"Kill them?" Tucker asked. That didn't sound like Danny at all. Unless you counted killing level 1 or 2 ghosts, but that was more for energy absorption and a natural part of the ghostly world than anything else. And he only did it when he was extremely weak.

"Yeah, but honestly that's the farthest thing from the truth. One of the guys received two broken ribs because Danny kicked him in the stomach and the other has a mild concussion and some serious bruising on the side of his face. That was it."

"How long ago?" Jazz questioned.

"They said that it was close to an hour and a half before we showed up." Sam sighed and looked out the window watching the other cars pass by; they were back on the main road. "They said that after the interview they were going to start performing experiments on him. But they said that if he talked in the interview then they would hold off on the experiments until they got what they wanted from him."

The rest of the ride was spent in silence, the weight of what was happening weighing too heavily on them to speak. It didn't take long to reach Fenton Works again, however they were greeted with the Fenton RV sitting in its designated spot. Thankfully Sam had the solution for their problem. Her parents and grandma had left yesterday morning after Sam was off at school to go up to Chicago and would be gone until the following Wednesday or Thursday. Upon reaching the sanctuary of her bedroom they got down to business of looking at the things Tucker was able to download. Tucker plugged his PDA into her computer and uploaded everything to her systems.

"I have their blueprints for the building, codes for the ghost shield and their generators. I've got some reports here that look pretty recent and I should have gotten information on ghosts that they have in holding, but that's all I was able to get in such a short time."

"Good, that'll give us enough information to get a plan together so we can infiltrate them and get Danny back." Sam said. Tucker pulled the blueprints up on her computer so her and Jazz could look them over so he could look over the reports to see if he could figure out how they had gotten Danny.

Sam and Jazz were able to conjure up a route to where they believed Danny was being held. They knew he had to be on Sub-basement level 1 or 2, as those were the levels to house the ghosts that the GIW had captured. However, they believed that there was more likely a chance for Danny to be held on Sub-basement level 3 or 4 because that's where the interview rooms were as well as the labs. They were discussing what their best plan would be when Tucker interrupted their thought processes.

"Oh, shit."

They both turned around to see him on Sam's bed gazing at his PDA with wide eyes, "What?"

"Pull up the reports then file #161772A." Sam did as he said after asking for the number again and up popped a report with the days date written on it.

There was a time stamp of 14:20, which was when they were all still in school. There was the name of the Agent who took the call that this report was about. Written on the next line was the name of the caller. Sam and Jazz's eyes went wide as they read who called them in. They continued to read the report, which stated that they saw Phantom along Pioneer Street and was fighting another ghost that the caller didn't recognize. They said that no one was on scene and that an Agent needed to get out there as quickly as possible to capture the ghosts.

"No way. There is no way!" Sam yelled getting up from her seat and commenced pacing. "There is no way that _Vlad_ could have called the GIW. He hates them more than he hates _Jack_ and that's saying something."

"Plasmius hates them more than my Dad. But Vlad gives them donations every year." Jazz informed them.

"Yeah under DALV, but why call them on Danny? What was he doing over there anyway? I mean I know he wants to get rid of Danny, but that's only after he makes his clone. What would getting Danny captured by them benefit for him. Because if they find out Danny's a half ghost he'll expose Vlad too. What's to say they kill him without realizing they really killed him? How is he supposed to get his perfect clone of Danny? Unless this is his way to get Maddie. But they captured Danny not _Danny_ so how…"

"Tucker!" Jazz yelled distracting the young techno geek.

He took a deep breath to calm himself. "Sorry."

"It's okay." Sam answered for them both. "Look, Vlad being the one to call them about Danny is incredibly important. But that can wait until after we get him back and make sure he's okay. Because focusing on Vlad right now and his twisted mind is not going to help us save him."

"We'll need to figure out when the best time to go would be." Tucker said, "We don't want to infiltrate when there are a lot of people there. The fewer Agents the better chance we have at getting Danny out of there and us _not_ arrested."

"How are we going to determine that though?" Jazz questioned.

"When I downloaded things from their systems it started on a general everyday type knowledge then worked its way further into their systems. I obviously didn't get overly far but I did get their codes and what not, as well as the easiest thing they have hooked up to their computers – their time stamps. It's all electronic there and with a… few… clicks… viola! We can see how many Agents are in the building." He smiled triumphantly, holding up his PDA to show the girls.

"What does it say?"

"Let me look through this and I'll tell you." After ten minutes of looking through his information Tucker spoke back up, "I'm not liking this." The girls turned to him questioningly where they sat at Sam's desk again. "The lowest amount of guards or Agents in the building is Saturday night."

"What!" Sam yelled, standing up from her computer chair, "We can't wait two days!"

"It's either Saturday night or Tuesday night. Though I'm confused why a Tuesday."

"Well forget that! We need to go as soon as possible."

"Friday have the _most_ amount of Agents, Sam. I guess they all go in and stay longer to get all their paper work in and what not."

"I don't _care_. We'll plan for it. You know we can't let him stay in that horrid place any longer."

"Sam…"

"Don't _Sam_ me. You know I'm right." She crossed her arms over her chest and glared him down.

"We don't have the capability to perform a rescue with a lot of Agents there." Sam turned her glare to the red head, "Would you rather all three of us get caught and then _never_ be able to rescue Danny? Stop acting like a hair-brained child and start thinking like yourself."

Sam stood with her arms still crossed over her chest, but her mouth had fallen over in shock. Tucker and Jazz waited with baited breath to see what the goth was going to do. She let out a long breath through her nose and closed her eyes. "Okay. Fine, Saturday night then." She opened her eyes again, the anger and pain easily coming through them.

From that point on they only talked about their plan for infiltrating the building. When it got too late, Jazz made them go to bed because she was going to make sure that they went to class tomorrow. It was a very quiet ride as Sam drove Tucker home.

When they pulled up to this house he sat there for a few minutes trying to determine if she would talk back with him. "I know you're mad at me, but I'm no more happy about this than you are."

"I'm not mad at you."

"Don't lie to me." Tucker rolled his eyes.

"Okay, fine I'm annoyed but I'm not mad anymore." She kept her eyes focused out the windshield. "You both were right, my mind was clouded and I was being an idiot."

Tucker sat there in shock at her apology. He knew she must have come around and really felt bad for the way she had acted since she practically never apologized. "I'll see you tomorrow." He didn't want to push it.

"Bye Tuck."

Friday came too early for either of them. They went to school, Tucker had made sure to call ahead and use a recording of Jack's voice that was made a long time ago, to call Danny in so it would not be bad for him. They stuck close together like they usually did. Without Danny being there they could see Dash was in a bad mood. Without Dash's favorite punching bag more people than Mikey and Nathan were getting bullied that day. Tucker had been shoved into a couple lockers himself.

But that was nothing compared to their last class of the day. Both knew they held tempers when it came to each other. But Sam was surprised at the feeling of pure anger that came bubbling to the surface between her and Tucker against their instructor. Sam wanted to walk up to Agent Z and demand answers from him. Wanted to shake him until he told them what they were doing to Danny. She knew he was in pain, she could practically feel it. Thankfully they both were able to hold the other back from doing anything rash. _They couldn't cross that line._

No matter how much they wanted to.

When class ended Sam dropped Tucker off at home, because he knew that he wouldn't be seeing his parents the whole weekend. He really didn't want them to worry about him. He was surprised however to find them all gung ho at the idea of him spending the entire weekend at Sam's without making a fuss to be home Sunday night or to come by during the day on Saturday to do something around the house. Once they told him it was a great idea for him to spend the weekend at Sam's, they mentioned Phantom.

"So sad that Phantom was captured by the Guys in White." His mom said bringing her boys their sandwiches she made, as they sat on the couch with the TV on.

"How do you know about that?"

"It was on the news, son." His father answered.

"It was?"

"Yeah, people aren't happy. I heard that there were protestors down at city hall. And when I went to the store earlier there were people standing outside handing out 'Free Phantom' flyers."

"Really?" Tucker was always surprised how the public had changed their view on Danny after spending so long as Public Enemy #1.

"I have to agree with those people," His father stated, "Phantom needs to be set free. And someone needs to go in and get him out." Both of his parents were looking at him with such determination that he could have sworn they were telling him to go save him. And then it was gone, "That poor boy doesn't deserve whatever they're doing to him."

Throughout the rest of the afternoon and into the night the discussion on Phantom stayed as the focus of the discussion. It surprised him how his parents kept talking about him and how they were all over Danny staying around and protecting the town. Damn, everything was surprising him today. He wondered if his parents knew more than what he thought. But he couldn't think on that now, he needed to focus solely on rescuing Danny.

* * *

 **September 13** **th** **, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **GIW Headquarters**

 **8:15 p.m.**

"You ready for this?" Tucker asked as he positioned himself at the perimeter fence to the GIW Headquarters.

"As we'll ever be." Sam whispered. Jazz gave a nod to signify her readiness.

"Alright. No going back after this." He whispered back and went to work on his PDA. Sam and Jazz made sure to be prepared to done their night vision goggles they took from the Fenton supplies, for later use. "The electricity is cut. Let's go."

They all three began to climb the tall chain link fence. Sadly Tucker was having the toughest time, however his determination over powered his poor fence climbing skills. At the top they each held down the two layers of barbed wire for the other; thankful for the gloves that adorned their hands. Once they were safely on the ground Tucker resumed the code to have the electrical field turned back on.

They stuck to the shadows as they snuck across the grounds. When the shadows became too scarce they hid behind trucks and trees, and then finally only the military trucks. It was behind one of these trucks, almost ¾'s of the way to the main building that they were caught.

"Halt. Who goes there?" A gun was being raised, but Sam was faster. She kicked the man in the stomach, knocked his gun out of his hands and pinched the nerve just at his shoulders and neck before he was down. Tucker and Jazz let the awe over Sam overcome them for a few seconds before they were back in 'mission mode'. Sometimes they forgot how lethal Sam could be.

Said girl pulled out the Comm. Unit of the guard and placed it in her own ear where the Fenton Phones did not reside, underneath her black mask after wiping it off first. She searched his pockets for anything else important, but all she came across was a keycard with levels he had access to. Only 3. She groaned in annoyance to herself. It was better than nothing however. Beggars couldn't be choosers.

When Sam deemed it clear through the comm. link, they moved again getting extremely close to the building. Part two of their plan was about to commence.

"Alright, they have the doors pretty heavily guarded. We're going to have to douse the lights and video feed to sneak in." Sam whispered.

"On it." Tucker whispered. He tapped a few times on his PDA and all the outside and inside first floor lights went out. They all pulled on their night vision goggles and raced straight across the yard to the doors. 10 Agents were bustling their way inside and they made sure to move with them, doing their best not to be seen as outsiders.

And they were in.

Sam, Tucker and Jazz didn't stop though once they reached the inside lobby area as everyone else did. They continued down the left hallway and hid in the supply closet at the end of the hallway just as the lights turned back on. There was a string in the small closet that Jazz pulled to turn on the light and they took off their goggles again.

They waited five long minutes until Sam whispered, "They're saying it's a malfunction in the systems."

"Alright, I'm going to freeze all the cameras." It was another five minutes before Tucker gave the all clear. They knew they would have to be careful though since they were unable to tap into the video feed on the PDA unless they unfroze that camera. "We need to find an open office so I can make sure I can plug in to get all their information."

"Let's go." Jazz whispered and opened the door of the supply closet a few inches. When she found no one she opened the door further and found the hall empty. Sam turned off the light and they were on the move. Tucker made his way down the hallway to the right as Sam and Jazz moved to the left where the elevator was. But Tucker came up empty on rooms with their doors open. They pressed the button labeled SB1 – which they figured meant sub-basement level one.

As the doors opened they were met with the same white walls as above on level 1. Except these walls had white plaques with black words and numbers on them along with a keypad and a card reader next to them. Getting a closer look they realized that the words were names and the numbers had to be prisoner numbers. The plaques were only on the left side of the hallway, making it easy to go through them, but 'Phantom' name never appeared.

At the end of the row of rooms another hallway opened up. At the end of this new hallway they could see another elevator.

"We're _not_ splitting up." Jazz demanded. Sam and Tucker agreed and they moved down the new hallway, to their left another hallway opened up quickly but with a dead end. They headed down this hallway and found plaques again on both sides of the short passage. On the left of the rows they found nothing. On the right side of the hallway they found nothing; that is until they reached the 2nd to last room.

 _ **Danny Phantom**_

 _ **#32936**_

 _ **Level 8**_

"Danny." They all breathed.

Sam moved forward and swiped the key card but nothing happened. Tucker quickly hooked his PDA into the keypad. When the light on the key pad changed to green a door that was unnoticeable before, slid open revealing a small bright white room.

But no Danny.

"Shit!" Sam growled out. They were really hoping to be able to get him out easily.

"What are you doing?" The three of them turned to face where they came from to see two GIW Agents making their way towards them. Even before the men could reach for their Comm. Units to alert the building the girls were on them.

Sam threw a punch towards the GIW on the rights face, but knew he would be blocking it and used her right arm to direct a hit to his gut, then bringing her knee up between his legs. As his body fell to the ground she pulled out an escrima stick that was hers and whacked him across the side of the head at the temple with enough force to knock him out. She knew how to handle her blows, having been taught through her martial arts training she had done a year or so ago, and kept up her practice.

Jazz however thought three steps ahead of Sam and had beaten her guy down enough that she was able to ask him questions without worrying he would attack back.

"Where are you keeping Phantom?" The anger evident in her disguised voice.

"I don know wad you mean." The Agents cool voice was easy to understand even though Sam was pretty sure Jazz had broken his nose.

"He's not in this cell, which means he's in the labs. Which labs?" The GIW Agent only glared back at her with brown eyes; his glasses had been knocked off during the fight.

"He's not going to tell us." Sam growled and knocked him out the same way she did her guy. "We can find him ourselves." Jazz leaned down and pulled the Comm. link out of his ear, wiped it on her pants and placed it in her own.

"We already have one." Sam tapped her own ear before taking the Comm. link out of the other guy's ear. She dropped it on the ground and smashed it with her boot.

"Not for the inside guys. I bet they run on a different frequency." Sam knew she was right and focused on the passed out Agents.

They decided to pull the bodies into Danny's prison cell before closing the door and making their way back to the main elevator. Thankfully they still hadn't run into anyone else. "We'll start on SB-3, I remember there being a computer lab on that level. Plus we have to check it anyway." Tucker told them, "You guys will search for Danny and I'll go…"

"No." Sam's voice was finalized, "Jazz said we are not going to split up and I'm fully with her on this. We go to the computer lab first. And we check anything along the way."

"Sam."

"No."

And then he couldn't argue anymore because the elevator had dinged and the doors slid open. Again no one was in sight. They turned right. There was only one door that they came across that led to what they concluded to be an interview room and one door they knew was a lab; but still no Danny. At the end of the hall they made a left and an immediate right where they were met with eight more doors until another hallway opened up. They went to continue down the hallway they were still in when an Agent turned the corner of the hallway they were trying to pass and started walking towards them.

Panicking they waited for him to pass. When they triple checked that the coast was clear they continued back down the hallway, leaving the one that opened up on he left alone. But their victory didn't get to last long as alarms started blaring and a flashing red light bounced off the pure white walls.

"Go!"

They ran down the corridor, three guards appeared, but they took them down easily using the training they learned through Crystalrose. They barely had enough time to register how easy it was to take down supposedly highly trained Agents. At the end of the hallway just as it opened up into another hallway – Geez, how many hallways did they have – the door for the computer room appeared before them on the right.

They made sure to lock the door – both of them – and kept off the lights. Sam and Jazz stationed themselves at both doors while Tucker went to work at one of the computers in the back that would be hard to see from the small window in the doors.

As his PDA started downloading what he could, he used their systems to see if he could find Danny and erase anything they had on him. He knew they couldn't run around this place anymore. Sam and Jazz stayed posed at each door, Sam's escrima stick prepared and Jazz waited with Sam's other one. She knew how to wield one on an okay level, but she felt safer with it in her hand than if she had nothing. Neither wanted to fight unless they had to.

"He's in lab SB3-07B." Tucker whispered into the darkness.

"So he's on this level?" Jazz confirmed.

"Looks like it." That was the end of their conversation as the handle of the door where Sam was stationed at jiggled.

"They're in here!" A Woman Agent's voice made it through the door.

"Shit." Sam cursed under her breath and crawled to Jazz. "Let's go." She whisper yelled at Tucker.

"Hold on, it's almost done."

The door was thrown upon and the woman Agent raised a gun at them all. They each froze in shock – they definitely weren't expecting the guns.

"Freeze!" She yelled, even though they hadn't moved an inch and turned on the lights with the switch along the wall. Thankfully though it was only her and Sam took advantage of this.

When she was looking at Tucker – her gun pointed at him as well – Sam moved from her position on the carpet half way to Jazz and launched herself at the woman. She aimed for her head like she did on the other Agent, but the woman blocked her quickly before she could strike.

The woman struck with her right arm hitting Sam in her side. She let out a breath of air and retaliated with a knee into her abdomen, but was hit on the shoulder with the woman's gun hard. She yelled out but kept going. They traded a few blows to the other. Sam getting a good one across the woman's face knowing she was going to get a black eye but Sam received her fair share as her mouth started bleeding and her lip split.

"I got it!" Tucker yelled out but Sam couldn't look behind her to make sure he was heading towards the door.

But the Agent was distracted enough however, that Sam was able to get in a shot at the bundle of nerves just behind her ear. And she was out. Sam had a second to be proud of her skill when five Agents appeared in the doorway. She grabbed the now unconscious Agent's gun and bolted towards the other door where Jazz and Tucker were standing.

"Stop!" She heard one of the Agents yell, but they didn't. "Fire upon will."

She dropped to the ground as the sound of the guns pieced the air. She covered her ears, but they were still ringing with the sound of gunshots. She looked out the door from her position behind a desk and saw that Tucker and Jazz were fighting three more Agents in the hallway.

She cursed to herself again and made the split decision. She turned around the side of the desk and fired one round at each guard quickly. The kickback hurt her arms, but she was glad that her grandma had taught her how to shoot when she was younger. Before she was confined to the scooter most of the time she would always take her to the shooting range. She even had her own gun sitting in the first drawer of her nightstand.

After firing she ducked back behind the desk, her heart hammering hard against her chest. She hadn't aimed for anything fatal, but she'd never shot a _real_ person before, only dummies. After three second she gambled her luck when no sounds of advancement were heard and saw all of them on the ground.

Sam got up and rushed out the door. She knew they were conscious and would probably still have their guns in their hands, but she took her chance. Once out the door there was only one more Agent left conscious that Jazz and Tucker were fighting. But Sam didn't have to step in as Jazz delivered the final blow sending the Agent to the ground and didn't try to get back up.

Sam led them off after she grabbed a gun off one of the Agents and made her way straight down the hallway. To the left they could see the hallway they had already come from, but they knew Danny wasn't down that way. There were three Agents rushing down said hallway and the group picked up their pace. They read the names on the doors to the labs and knew they were getting closer as the lab numbers went down. They reached the end of the hallway yet again to find another elevator and a set of stairs. They turned left and found that the labs continued on the same wall. The very last door they came to read SB3-07B.

They needed an access code again and Sam typed in the one they had gotten on their first doors but it didn't work. Tucker moved her aside before she could get frustrated and hooked up his PDA again and overrode the machine, the light going from red to green and barged into the room, the door closing instantly behind them.

What met their eyes could only be described as any scary Asylum movie they'd ever seen. Danny was strapped on the metal examination table, a scientist stood in his white lab coat above him with a scalpel in hand. Just behind Danny stood an Agent who held a device in his hand.

"Get away from him." Jazz yelled and moved towards the doctor.

Sam and Tucker moved towards the hulking GIW Agent that they had to admit looked incredibly intimidating. There was a white jagged scar on his neck, a pink slightly puffed up scar from his forehead to his right ear, and were shocked to find that half of his ear was gone.

The Agent did not speak as they fought him. They were trading blows, neither side winning but Sam could tell her and Tucker were going to lose this fight if they didn't think of something soon. She knew she could shoot the Agent in the foot, but she also knew he wouldn't be slowed down by such an action and would be shot by the gun he was wielding against them before she could probably blink.

"I don't think so." He snarled raising his gun. Sam thought he was going to shoot Tucker and pushed him out of the way; she couldn't let him get hurt. But she had been wrong. The Agent's arm kept moving to the side and fired. Jazz's scream pierced the lab.

Sam cocked her gun quickly. _No one_ _hurt her sister._

She fired three times. One going into the forearm of the arm that held the gun, the other hit his shoulder of the same arm and she aimed her last one in his thigh. She would have fired another but she reached the end of her magazine. The gun fell from the Agent's grasp, Sam knew she wasn't going to be fast enough and crossed her fingers that it wouldn't go off when it hit the ground. Thankfully, it didn't.

"Help her." Sam barked to Tucker who rushed to Jazz's side, but she kept her eyes focused on the Agent in front of her, her ears ringing louder from the close shots. It was hard to not feel off balance. The Agent was still standing in front of her, a smirk on his face as his arm and leg was covered in blood.

"You're not leaving."

Sam could hear him just enough and didn't respond with words but pulled out her escrima stick and smacked him in his injured shoulder. He reached up as she pulled it away to go and deliver another blow and grabbed it in a tight hold. He used his other injured arm to deliver a blow to her face, but she ducked and released the stick. She pulled the other gun from her belt, released the safety and fired a shot in his foot. He roared in pain and Sam delivered a kick between his legs and a final kick to his head as he fell to the ground. When Sam checked him over she concluded he was unconscious. She picked up her escrima from his fingers and placed it on her belt before turning to her family.

Jazz was holding a wrapped and bleeding bandage to her left bicep; a tourniquet had been tied above her bullet wound. She was pale and breathing quickly through her mouth while gritting her teeth.

"Are you okay?"

"I will be." Sam wanted to focus on Jazz but she knew she could hold on long enough to make it home. She turned to Tucker to see him working on unstrapping the last few straps.

She looked over Danny and wanted to cry at the sight, but she kept herself together. She had to. From what she could see they had stripped him of the top of his jumpsuit, but it stayed gathered around his waist. His right leg was twisted at an awkward angle as was his arm. Cuts laced his body – large ones that she knew would require severe stitching. Bruises littered his body and arms, a type of IV was in his arm and red splotches littered him. On his left arm the numbers 32936 were red and raised, looking as though they were burned onto him.

When she looked at his face, there were cuts there as well and a couple of severe bruises but his green eyes shown bright as they looked at each of them. "Danny." She whispered and moved to run a hand through his hair but found it coated and thickened in blood as well.

"Sam?" She could barely hear him, his voice was so low. It didn't help that her ears were still ringing.

"It's me."

At the same time Tucker said, "We're clear. We need to get him down to Sub-basement 5 with the garage."

"Hold on to me." Danny croaked out.

"No, don't exert anymore energy." Tucker said.

"I can…" He heaved in a breath, "get us there."

Tucker sighed then mumbled, "Good thing I disabled the ghost shields." Though Sam didn't like it she helped Danny stand up and everyone made sure to have a good grip on him. It was difficult to try and not hurt him but they knew Danny was right. The familiar feeling of intangibility flowed through them and Danny let them sink through the floor and into the next level where they appeared in another lab, but this one was empty and dark. Danny stopped to catch his breath before turning intangible one last time.

Thankfully they hadn't been seen as they had landed behind one of the Jeeps. Sam looked in the car and found that a key was sitting in the ignition ready to go. She didn't look a gift horse in the mouth and helped Jazz up and over the door into the backseat. Sam got in next and with a struggle they finally were able to get Danny into the back seat. Tucker climbed over Sam and got into the passenger seat. The elevator dinged behind them and Sam didn't wait long enough to see how many Agents were there and started the car before peeling out of the vehicles parked spot.

The only sound that was heard was the rush of wind in their ears. The lights falling at each interval flashed white on each of them, but no one missed the white light that signified Danny changing back to Fenton.

"His bleeding is getting worse." Jazz's voice shook with fear or shock Sam wasn't sure. Tucker was about to respond when a bullet shattered the windshield in the middle, a hole showing where it had hit.

"We're almost there, almost there." Sam whispered to herself. She laid the gas pedal to the floor; it's not like she owned the car. If it broke, then she did good. The headlights hit the end of the tunnel and Sam knew she had to find the button in the car to open the tunnel. She passed Tucker the gun she was holding in her lap and told him to shoot their cars to stop them.

"But I don't know…"

"It's the same as an ecto-gun."

She heard the first shot ring out as she looked for the button on the car to the road. She found it on the left side of the steering wheel as a blue button. She pressed it as another shot rang out. Load groaning could be heard throughout the tunnel as the road lifted up and Sam kept her foot steady as she raced up the ramp.

"I'm out!" Tucker yelled turning back around. "But I was able to stop four of their trucks."

Just as she reached the main road she hit the button again to close the road and yelled, "Hold on!" She braked hard before turning the car to the right and traveling back over the dirt that surrounded the road before the trees started, back to her own car.

But the road was opening again. "Override it, Tuck."

He pulled his PDA from his pocket and did as Sam said, the road coming back down to normal and staying there with no GIW coming out. Sam pulled up to her own car with a screech of the wheels before hoping out of the Jeep. She pulled her car keys from under the front left tire of the car and opened her doors.

Opening the Jeep doors, it made it easier for her and Tucker to get Danny out and into the backseat. Jazz joined him back there and rested his unconscious head in her lap. Tucker was having trouble overriding the systems but he still held power over it as Sam started up her own car, turned around a gunned it down the two lane road.

They made it over the opening of the road and half a mile away when Tucker was unable to override anymore. Sam pulled their car back to the speed limit, hoping that they would be dumb enough if they came their way, that they would pass them by. It's not like they could pull them over anyway. But no GIW cars of any kind followed them. Sam and Tucker kept a watch in the mirrors. They made it back to the highway and there was still no sign of the Guys in White.

It was quiet the rest of the way back to Sam's. The tense atmosphere did not dissipate as more and more cars appeared on the road. They were expecting the unexpected. When Sam pulled into her driveway she was surprised that they hadn't run into any further problems. They got Danny inside and up to Sam's room, laying him down on the multiple sheets they had laid out on her floor that they used sometimes when injuries were bad.

Jazz took a seat next to her brother's head, clutching her left arm as blood seeped through; she was still incredibly pale. "Tucker, I want you to help Jazz."

Sam made her way to her bathroom where she pulled out her medical supplies – a lot had sadly been stolen from hospitals, but there was no way they were going to let Danny suffer or let his secret out if they could help it.

She was able to set Danny's broken leg and arm then wrapped it to make sure it stayed in place. After that she grabbed all her supplies for stitching and went to work. She had taken a few classes when Danny had first started fighting for the town and she was practically a pro now at sewing him up. As she started her work on stitching a cut on his chest she finally noticed the bruising on his side becoming more visible since there was no more dried blood on him. She finished stitching the rest of him up before focusing on other aspects that covered the front of his body.

Jazz and Tucker exited through the bathroom door from where Tucker was fixing her up. He had Jazz go lie down on Sam's bed and carefully placed two pillows under her arm and told her he would bring her some saltine crackers.

There were electrical burns over Danny's chest and abdomen and other burns Sam was unsure of. But she rinsed the burns with cold water before applying a bandage. She did so on the numbers along his left forearm as well. Tucker was by her side and Jazz was busy chewing her crackers and drinking a glass of water.

"I need to fix his back. We're going to sit him up slowly, his ribs are broken." Tucker carefully helped lift Danny's unconscious form, holding his head up so it wouldn't snap or hurt him more. On his back there were more electrical burns as well as more of the red burns Sam found on the front of him and several large cuts.

When he was looking closer to a mummy then himself, they laid Danny back down and both moved to lean against her dresser. Realizing she still had the Comm. Unit in her ear and key card in her pocket she pulled them out, reached up and put them on top of her dresser with her and Tucker's Fenton phones.

"I'm starting to get information already." Tucker's whispered voice was laden with sleep.

"We'll look over it tomorrow." She whispered back. "You should get some sleep. I'm going to keep an eye on him." She yawned causing Tucker to yawn with her.

"No, that's okay." He sighed.

"Tucker." Her voice was firm. She rolled her head to the side to glare up at him. "Go to bed."

He looked down at her as well. He could see the determination in her eyes and knew she was probably right. "Wake me up when you swap his bandages."

"Okay." She probably would need his help again, anyway. It was hard to lift him up nowadays. She was strong, but she couldn't maneuver and hold him at the same time. Tucker was out a few minutes later, leaning against her shoulder and she was left alone with her thoughts.

 **September 13** **th** **, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **Sam's room**

 **11:40 p.m.**

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I hoped you all liked it!

Please let me know what you thought in a Review! I wanna see another **7 reviews from you guys**! Mainly because I love hearing your opinions on my story :)

I'm focusing a lot on Sam and Tucker's relationship because most of the time we get Danny and Tucker or Danny and Sam but never just Sam and Tucker and I feel it's important to emphasize their friendship because they really are best friends even if they fight a lot. They're like Ron and Hermione, just without the falling in love portion.

**Notes to Reviewers after story: **CaptainDorito, SamXDanny** and **Savirox.**

 **CaptainDorito:** I had actually given what you said about Ch. 9 lyrics a serious thought, however I sided with the focus on the Ghost King because that is a main focus point of this first story. Yes I did leave you hanging on the last chapter but I hope that this chapter made up for it! LOL. I know that I didn't put the whole torture scenes in but they will show up, don't worry about that. I love giving you guys that angst! Haha. I hope you had a great thanksgiving! Yeah, this past week and this next one are going to be excruciating! But hopefully that means I get good grades on my Finals. :)

 **SamXDanny:** I'm sorry that I didn't have them meet halfway and hug like you really wanted, but I hope that I was able to live up to what was next best? Hahaha I feel so evil sometimes :) Thank you so much for saying that you loved the chapter lyrics, I always like hearing that they're appreciated. I let you in on a little secret: I almost didn't like the idea of putting in the chapter lyrics.

 **Savirox:** Was this escape destructive enough? I know not very damaging on the building or anything. But physically and mentally what'd you think? Did I meet your expectation?


	14. Memories to Waste

Hey guys! I'm so happy that you all loved the rescue chapter! Thank you so much for all your reviews, I appreciate it so much. Thank you to: **Icypoolthewarrio, SamXDanny, Savirox, Great, BloodRedPhantom, ShadowDragon357,ShyMudkipGal, rulenosha, CaptainDorito and Turkeyhead987!**

 _ **Answers to Reviews at bottom!:**_ Icypoolthewarrio, Savirox, Great, BloodRedPhantom, ShadowDragon357, rylenosha, CaptainDorito, Turkeyhead987

So i asked about the lengthy chapters and since only one person responded and said that they liked them long, i'm going to stick with the chapter lengths i'm doing now with a few longer ones thrown in at times. Sometimes you have to appeal to the masses. Don't worry though, the story will still get across and be the same, I just know that a lot of people don't like those insanely long chapters.

Anyway, this past week has been super crazy with final projects! and This next week is finals! Ugh, it's crazy. That being said the next update will be on **Monday**! I repeat the next update will be next week **Monday 12/21/15.** That next weekend is incredibly busy for me because my team that i coach will be performing on Saturday and i will honestly have no time this week to go over and fix the next chapter of this story. I'm so sorry for the delay but my University education is more important. Thank you so much for understanding.

That being said, i hope you enjoy this chapter!

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or the song lyrics from 'Empty Gold' by Halsey**

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 **We're the underdogs, in this world alone**

 **I'm a believer, got a fever running through my bones**

 **We're the alley cats, and they can throw their stones**

 **They can break our hearts, they won't take our souls**

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 **I Walk The Line: Memories to waste**

 **Word count: 4,961**

 **12/13/15**

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 **September 14** **th** **, 2014**

 **Sunday**

 **Sam's Room**

 **Morning**

Tucker, Sam and Jazz were amazed at everything that Tucker was able to gather from the GIW systems. They focused on three top priority items: information on Danny, who their contributors were and what they knew about the ghost zone. They figured it was best to start with their information on the Ghost Zone then their plans because that might give them better understanding to what they were doing in Amity Park.

The information that they found on the Ghost Zone surprised them. Many ghosts had told them the information they now had and the group wasn't sure whether to be mad or annoyed or both that they knew so much information. They knew how the doors in the Zone worked. They knew who the Observants were and about Clockwork. The GIW knew about how ghosts fed on each other, knew about Pariah Dark. So much more was found that they decided to put it away for later to be able to focus on what they found on Danny. While they had been searching through this information however, they found a file labeled 'Contributions' making them stop there first.

They didn't have as much information on the GIW contributors as they had hoped but the information they did have was more than what they thought. Fenton Works was listed as their 2nd benefactor, giving them weapons, weapon designs and information on ghosts they gathered. Well, _give_ wasn't exactly the right word; there were payment stamps with their information. They figured that the GIW had gotten in trouble last time from taking from the Fenton's and then the whole fiasco with the large check, probably took its toll in Washington. They were getting paid a pretty penny, which made Sam wonder if they were saving that to pay for Jazz's college and they just hadn't told either of their children about it.

Someone that they hadn't heard of from Washington D.C. was giving the GIW large sums of money every six months. His name was Charles Krestlon; when they googled him they found that he was a CEO for a Defense Company called Bridgeton International. His business focused on weapons and turning out vehicles for the army. They couldn't find anything bad on him.

Lastly DALV showed on their records. The GIW was receiving a donation once a year from DALV and ghostly weapons details as well as other weapons that were not focused towards the army. The trio rolled their eyes when they read this because none of them were surprised.

The weapons that were received from both Vlad and the Fenton's were not found under their listings and the group decided to search for them later once they found information on Danny. Tucker had been able to obtain videos and reports written through the time Danny was there. They had gone through a few reports and half of a video of Danny in an interrogation room when Tucker decided that it was time for lunch.

At this point in time Tucker struck with a golden idea. "What if Dora's healing tea could heal Jazz?"

"What tea?" Jazz asked as Sam stared at him wide eyed. She couldn't believe she hadn't thought of that earlier.

"It's this tea that Dora has, and she gave some to Danny and Sam and it healed them really quickly. It's like Sam had Danny's healing when she drank it. She had a concussion and it was completely healed in a couple of hours." Tucker said excitedly.

Jazz looked down at her covered bicep. Her arm was still in incredible pain and she could barely use her entire arm. She had really wanted to go to a hospital but she knew there was no way she could do that considering they had pulled off something illegal and she was too worried about Danny last night to suggest otherwise. She turned to look at Sam, "It worked on you?"

"Yeah. You see they infuse some sort of magic into it or something. I didn't really ask how it worked. But I don't have any ghost powers and I don't have super healing abilities without that tea, so it's apparently okay for humans."

Jazz wanted to try it so her and Sam went on to Dora's kingdom. Sam wanted to stay home at first and watch over Danny, but Tucker insisted that Danny would be fine in his capable hands and that he'd continued reading over what information they had gotten. Tucker mainly wanted her to go because everyone in the kingdom loved Sam and they didn't particularly like him very much. They were nice to him, but he figured they gave him the cold shoulder because of how technologically forward he was; but he couldn't be sure.

To get the Fenton parents clear of the basement Sam called Maddie and told her that when they were driving back to her house they saw Danny Phantom by the park and that she saw the GIW already on their way. The phone conversation turned longer however when Maddie wanted to know where Danny was. Sam could hear the anger and worry in her voice so she told her that Danny was staying at her house at the moment. Maddie sounded relieved and told Sam that he needed to answer his phone and to call her when she saw him. After Sam told Maddie she would pass along the message they didn't have to wait long before they were able to go into the house without worrying. Dora was excited to see them but extremely mad for what had happened to Jazz and to Danny. It took a few hours but the tea was brewed and Dora made Jazz drink one glass while she was there to make sure nothing bad happened.

They made it back easily. Jazz made a quick call to Maddie to make sure she and Jack were still out searching for Danny and then continued back to Sam's. It was late afternoon, just past four when they got back and Tucker was excited to see that they had gotten the tea for Jazz. They weren't sure what to do about Maddie wanting Danny to call her when he was still unconscious but they decided that texting would be the best option. They used Danny's phone and told her that he was staying the night because there was a project due for Ghost 101. Maddie gave the all clear but said that if he wasn't home tomorrow he was going to be grounded for more than a week. After that it was pretty somber as they all went back to work looking at the information they had gotten on Danny.

They were disappointed – not at Danny, but at the situation – of some of the things that he had let slip when they tortured him. Of course they would never hold anything that happened against Danny, it was not his fault in the slightest. But the GIW now knew that Danny was rumored to be the new Ghost King by more than just Plasmius – at this point Sam reminded Tucker that they needed to get in touch with Clockwork as soon as possible to find out the truth. They also knew how the Ghost Zone stretched on infinitely and then how he had died. Danny seemed to have been conscientious enough though, to not drop anything on being a half ghost.

In the reports that they read over Danny's stay there, they found how the GIW were amazed at Danny's human emotions. They were very confused on how the human emotions always stayed front and center in his mind and he never acted like a true ghost as other level 8s had done. They kept expecting him to turn savage with each new burn with the blood blossoms, but when that didn't happen they knew they needed to try something else to figure out why his emotions were much stronger than any other ghosts.

While they had been at the headquarters Tucker had been able to grab the samples of ectoplasm they had gathered from Danny. They had been sitting behind him and Jazz on a counter; while he had quickly fixed up Jazz he grabbed them and put them in his pockets. He was happy to inform them that he had been able to erase all the data they had on Danny in their systems but he was unable to promise that they didn't have more samples from him. Sam and Jazz were happy as well he was able to do this; they just crossed their fingers hoping that the GIW didn't have any more samples. They agreed they needed to check out everything Tucker pulled in the lab, they would just have to wait for the Fenton's to be clear of the area for a while.

Soon though it was too late and Tucker had been complaining about eating dinner enough for them to stop looking through the information. They were sitting in Sam's room, the T.V. on some show none of them were concerned about because they were lost in their own little worlds.

Jazz was seated in one of Sam's arm chairs for a change of pace from the bed. She was annoyed by the sling and gunshot wound but she was dealing with it as she felt the healing tea take reign and start fixing her muscles. It was worth it, but it didn't make her anymore happy. Tucker sat in a trance in another of Sam's arm chairs. Sam herself was seated on her bed, lost in her thoughts of what they discovered. And there was so much more. The images of Danny in the video kept flashing through her mind. She knew how cruel they could be, but seeing it was different. Seeing the evidence was different.

A loud gasp sounded from the floor taking her from her thoughts. She looked down to see Danny with his blue eyes open.

"Danny!" She yelled, throwing her plate of food to the side, her pieces of tofu falling off onto her bedspread. Tucker jumped up as well his entire plate of chicken and mashed potatoes falling to the floor, but he didn't care. Jazz herself had to move at a slower rate because of her arm.

Danny looked up at her, "Sam?" his voice croaked, "What… where?" He tried to sit up but cried out in pain.

"Stay still, stay still." She ordered, kneeling down by his head, Tucker following suit. "You're okay. You're in my room." She brushed his hair away from his forehead.

His eyes moved from her face to Tucker's and eventually Jazz's face as she came down on the opposite side of his head as them. "How did… I don't remember?" His voice was still broken and scratchy.

Sam shared a worrying look with Tucker and Jazz before looking back down at him, "What don't you remember?"

"How you got me out."

"But you remember everything else?" Jazz questioned.

"Everything until you guys showed up." Sam let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

"We can jog your memory." Tucker said, "You were pretty out of it, even though you seemed focused so we can forgive you not remembering one of the best rescues of all time. Seriously dude, we made James Bond jealous with how awesome we were." Danny chuckled with everyone else at Tucker's enthusiasm but coughed halfway through.

"Easy, Danny." Jazz told him. Sam stood up and grabbed him a glass of water and helped him take a few sips.

When he got his breath back they told him everything about their rescue, taking turns at certain parts. They started from when they went to investigate the GIW on Thursday night till they got him to the house. He was amazed at what they had gone through. When the group reached the part in the story where Jazz had gotten shot Danny went into panicked brother mode. It took them a while to calm him back down, but Jazz reassured him that she was going to be fine and that the tea was already at work.

Before Tucker had thought of the healing tea, he and Jazz had done more research on the internet to find out if they needed to go the hospital. But they had come to the conclusion that she wouldn't have to because many sites informed them that if the bullet was only lodged in the flesh even a doctor would not take it out. Now that she had the healing tea she felt better about not going to the ER, but she would watch it and make sure it didn't become infected just in case.

When Danny was calm they finished what had happened and he could only look at them with amazed eyes. "Holy crap guys."

They all chuckled humorlessly, "Yeah, well it was worth it. We got you and so much information on the Guys in White that it's going to take a couple of weeks to go over everything." Tucker said.

Danny let out a sigh, "That's good." There was a pause as everyone just stared at the other, "Can I have another glass of water?"

"I'll get it." Sam popped up and made her way to the bathroom.

"What happened to Seraphina?" Danny asked.

"What do you mean?" Tucker's brows furrowed in confusion and Sam walked back in with the glass for Danny.

Sam helped him lift his head and sip from the glass before he could answer Tucker's question. "Did they get her? Did they get the thermos?"

"Uh," Tucker looked at Sam and Jazz for help but they didn't have anything to say. "We didn't know that you had captured her. We knew that you had defeated her or got her to fix what she did to everyone but we…" When Danny's eyes narrowed he tried to cover his tracks. "But I can find out. I can read the repot they wrote when they got you." He moved quickly, sitting down at Sam's computer and began pulling up the information.

Sam helped him taken another slow drink for the glass.

"Wouldn't it be easier through a straw?" Jazz questioned.

"Probably." Sam titled the glass again, "But we don't have any." She pulled the glass away when Danny said he didn't want anymore. "So what happened? How did you capture Seraphina?"

His voice was only a tad smoother this time when he spoke. "It was hard, I remember that. Actually," he paused a thought-full, confused look crossing his face, "I don't remember how I started fighting her now that I think about it. I remember trading a few blows and I was really angry, she kept blasting me with different moods and I was able to get in a few good hits and I had to use my wail, then I made her change everything back before I sucked her up in the thermos."

"You don't' remember how you started fighting her?" Sam tried to keep the waver out of her voice.

He laid there thinking over what he could remember and was surprised how much was incredibly fuzzy. "I think the last clear day I remember was Tuesday, possibly Monday."

"Tucker?" Sam looked up at her other best friend who had turned around to listen to Danny. "Why is it that our memories are fine and his aren't?"

"The stress." Jazz answered. Sam almost slapped herself for not turning to her first. She would have a better knowledge than either of them did over this type of thing. "What the GIW did to him added with the time that Seraphina's powers kicked in at the school it would make sense that these last few days have been hazy."

"But that's practically a week!"

"The mind is strange, Sam; I don't have all the answers. This is what I know. His mind probably took a safe guard and shut down. I don't know why till Tuesday or Monday and we probably never will. Now's the time to take our time to help him through this."

"Um, guys I'm right here."

"They don't have the thermos or Seraphina." Tucker said at the same time as Danny.

"They don't?" Danny asked.

"No. I have all their recent catalogues and even in the report they did not say they picked up a Fenton thermos. They don't have her."

"Then it's still lying in the street?" Jazz questioned.

Tucker shrugged, "Probably."

"Me and Tucker will go look. Jazz take your other medicine. Do you need anything Danny?"

"No. Well, maybe some food."

Sam looked to Jazz who nodded, "I'll give him some bits from my plate."

She nodded in agreement, "Let's go Tuck." She grabbed two flashlights from her closet and made their way down to her car. She was berating herself for not thinking of it sooner. They didn't want to leave the thermos on the street or the side walk or under a car in case someone found it and opened it. Though most people would leave anything marked _Fenton_ alone if they saw it on the street.

Tucker reached the car ahead of Sam, who was still back by the door that opened to the house from the garage. He opened her car door and gasped her name. She closed the door to the house before turning to face him.

"What?" He reached into her black car and pulled out the last thing Sam was expecting to be in her front seat at that moment. "What does that note say?" She quickly made her way to him, hoping that it was a thermos she had left there from earlier.

" _Thank you for the new friend_." Tucker pulled off the cursive written note taped to the thermos. "I'm pretty sure that it's Vlad's writing." He held it out to her to read.

"One way to find out." Sam turned on her heal and Tucker followed her back up the stairs. "Jazz!" She called entering her room. "Tell me whose handwriting this is."

Jazz set down her plate of food again, while Danny asked them what was going on. But they said nothing as Jazz read over the note and studied it for a couple of seconds. "This is _Vlad's_ handwriting!" She looked up at them with wide eyes, confusion evident.

"I was afraid of that." Sam grumbled while Tucker asked,

"How can you be so sure?"

"Well his 'Ts' are always a bit sloppy when he writes and his 'a' and 'd' are sharper pointed considering he writes them the best because they're in his name. Also I read a lot of his handwritten reports when he tried to take me in to be his daughter."

Danny sighed, "So that means Vlad has Seraphina and whoever else I had in there?"

"Is it bad that we would rather have her in the hands of the GIW than Vlad?" Tucker thought aloud as he moved to pick up his food again and began eating.

"Kinda." Everyone else replied.

"Just checking."

"This all had to be Vlad's doing." Jazz spoke up, holding her arm tightly. "He was the one to call in Danny, which is something he normally wouldn't do. He didn't have any reason to be anywhere near Danny that we know of, and now he's taken Seraphina and whoever else. But he left us the thermos with a note. If he didn't plan this to get Seraphina, then I'm lazy and don't like to read."

"Wait," Danny locked eyes with each of them, "what do you mean _Vlad_ called it in? _Our Vlad_? The one who still wants me as his son, Vlad?"

"Yes, he called the GIW and told them where you were fighting and that's how they got you. They said on the report we read that you had been knocked out when they arrived on scene." Sam growled out.

"Does that mean he's not trying to make clones of me anymore? Because I have to tell you that _that_ is a relief." He tried to laugh but ended up coughing instead.

"Danny! Is that the only thing you got out of what we just said?" Danny could see the fire in Sam's eyes. Like brilliant purple flames that continued to burn brighter.

"No, I'm sorry." He really didn't want her to be mad at him, not after that night searching for Seraphina. He wished he could remember the next day overly well except the morning and his fight with Seraphina. "This just gives us another thing to look into about what Vlad is doing. Why does he want Seraphina in the first place? I doubt she's one to do someone else's bidding. She's not like Skulker."

"We'll need to keep our eyes out more." Sam agreed, "But right now since you're awake we need to go over your injuries."

Danny groaned in response. He always hated that he had to be taken care of. Though he did hurt pretty badly so he guessed it was okay considering it was Sam who was taking care of him.

"Alright we'll start simple. What still hurts?" And soon everything was coming out about what they did to him. His bones were still mending and his ribs were worse off, his body was almost rid of the bruises there. His cuts were almost healed that Sam decided to take out the stitches before his body covered them to insure that any scaring received by these wounds would not be incredibly bad. His burns were still touchy and Sam figured that his body was focused on healing so much that it would take a bit longer than normal. Finally, they came to the red burns that covered him in certain areas.

"We weren't sure what to do with them." Sam's voice dropped low as she peeled back a bandaged red burn on his bicep. "We couldn't tell what they were using, but they haven't changed since I first checked you over." She wanted to say that certain areas on her body felt numb compared to the dull ache she was feeling all over. She wasn't quite sure where it was coming from but a nagging voice in the back of her head told her it was because of Danny. But she ignored it, not wanting to get into that idea again.

She pulled off the last of his bandages over the burns; the one over the numbers on his arms came off last. "They're like the Nazi's." she growled. The others nodded in agreement, but Danny was staring at the numbers lost in thought.

"Do they still hurt?" Tucker asked quietly.

"No." His voice was think. The group had to settle themselves as he sounded too much like Dan at that point. They had gotten use to his voice of course, but sometimes… sometimes they were reminded too much of that evil version.

"Don't lie to me." Sam snapped. Their eyes locked, Danny's in shock, Sam's in determination.

It took a minute or so for Danny to answer them; his eyes still looked upon Sam's. "They're numb. In each spot it's numb." He sighed and looked away from her.

"Does it hurt anywhere else? Like around the burn?" Sam asked.

"No, it's fine. It's only numb on the red burns but nowhere else."

"What did they do?" Tucker asked as Sam got up to grab bandages and ointment she had used on his electrical burns.

"It was liquefied blood blossoms."

Everyone let out an outraged cry at this information. It took a few minutes for everyone to calm down, though they were still seething with anger.

"How did you find this out?" Jazz was the first to speak. "In the videos we watched blood blossoms were never mentioned in them or the reports. Unless of course we haven't reached that portion in the reports yet?"

"They turned off the cameras when they did these. They said, or well Agent Mendoza said that the top boss wasn't a fan of blood blossoms being used to torture. So they kept it out of the reports and the videos."

Sam put down the bandages, reached for a notebook on her desk a long with a pen and wrote something down before putting it back. The others looked at her questioningly until she answered. "I wanted to make sure I wrote down what you just said, just in case something happened with the GIW or you know, we took them to court or something."

We can't _take them to court_." Tucker told her before Jazz or Danny. "There's no rights for ghosts in the human realm."

"True. And no we can't take them to court now. But if we know the Guys in White and we do know them pretty well, then they're going to do something against Danny or someone else again. And after I have a _good_ list, then we _could_ take them to court."

"That doesn't exactly get us around the whole ghost side factor and secret ID." Jazz said before her brother.

"No, but it's nice to have." She shrugged. She knew it was better to be prepared then not at all.

"So I know that this is important and all, except I haven't eaten in like 3 days and I'm starving over here." Danny finally spoke up distracting them all from the heavy conversation.

Alright man," Tucker laughed. "I'll go make you some soup and get you some vitamins. Considering those burns we'll need to get you as much liquid as possible. And I'll bring up another glass of the tea." He got up, ignoring Jazz's grimace of disgust at the drink and made his way downstairs, leaving the plates of food.

Sam helped Danny take a few more drinks of water until she couldn't hold it in anymore. "What _don't_ you remember?"

"Well if I knew that then I would remember." Danny smiled cheekily up at her. Or at least as best he could with a stitched cheek.

"Don't make me hit you." Sam said as Jazz spoke at the same time as well,

"Danny." Her tone reprimanding.

"Sorry!" He rolled his eyes, "gods get a little tortured and no one has a sense of humor anymore." Both of them spoke his name in a reprimanding tone again. "Okay, I get it I'm sorry." He sighed out. "What I _don't_ remember?

"Let's see, I don't remember how I got to school that morning. Though I do remember being in the car and Tucker was acting weird. I barely remember going out and looking for Seraphina the night before. But I _do_ remember we were out together." He looked up at Sam. She smiled at him to continue. "I remember bits and pieces of Monday and that day of school, but really I just remember feeling a sort of anger that day. I don't remember my ghost sense going off, but I do remember forcing her, Seraphina, to change everyone back and she sent a green pulsing wave again out around the school, then I captured her." He sighed heavily, as if what he was about to say weighed him down. "I do remember that first interview with Agent Mendoza…"

"You mentioned him earlier, is that the guy with part of his ear missing?" Jazz interrupted.

Danny nodded, "Yeah, that's him. But after that interview things get kinda hazy again. I honestly couldn't tell you how long I was in there. If felt longer than 2 ½ days. But I _do_ remember some of what happened but it all seems to just blur together. Then next thing I know you're barging in and that's about it." He tried to shrug it off, but with his injuries and position on the floor it only left him wincing in pain.

"It's okay Danny." Jazz laid a hand on his shoulder, "You'll remember eventually. And if not, maybe it's a good thing. Though it really isn't good for your brain to suppress these memories, it might be best to talk through what you do remember there."

Sam let the two siblings talk it out as she got lost in her thoughts as she replaced the bandages over all his burns. She couldn't believe that this was happening. Everything that had happened Wednesday night and Thursday didn't matter. Well, no it still mattered but if Danny couldn't remember then what was the point of _making_ it matter. She still wasn't sure if the things that had happened were because of what Seraphina had done or if it had been there all along? She knew her feelings hadn't changed. It was as though they had been intensified but nothing had really changed except her driving force which made her act unlike herself.

She remembered the way his lips felt against hers, her hands in his hair, his burning touch on her waist. She wanted that again but she wanted to make sure Danny was okay before she tried anything again. She looked up at his face to see him still conversing with Jazz about his memories. God, she wanted to kiss him.

She would have to go back to how they were before. Which wasn't much different except no kissing or touching or anything that came with being with another person. But she would do it. She wanted him to remember on his own and if he never remembered then she would only be his best friend. She would rather have him as her best friend and dream for something more than not have him in her life at all. She would do it because she was in love with him.

And love was always a strange force to be reckoned with.

 **September 14** **th** **, 2014**

 **Sunday**

 **Sam's Room**

 **10:10 p.m.**

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Please Review! I want a **minimum of 7 reviews** again. It would mean so much to me :)

Good Luck everyone on Finals! I believe in all of you!

 _ **Answers to Reviews: **_

**Icypoolthewarrio:** Thank you so much for your comment! It made my day when you said that and it warmed my heart about this story. Sometimes i have doubts about how this story is going but you made all of those go away :) For updating I try to write as many chapters as i can and then update every sunday, that way i keep on a good track and don't get behind on the story. i just wanted to let you know for further updating times :) And don't worry about Danny's parents that will all come up soon. About the teachers though, in the last chapter i mentioned that Tucker called Danny in sick with a recording of Jack's voice. It was only a sentence but that's why the teachers weren't all over Sam and Tucker about him. Thank you again so much and i hope you enjoyed this chapter!

 **Savirox:** Thank you for saying that about the escape. I really am not very good at those kinds of scenes but i did plan them out as best as i could. Yes, Captured!Danny and tortured!Danny are my two favorites as well. Don't worry you will definitely be seeing those scenes. Patience my young grasshopper.

 **Great:** Yeah those 'gift horses' were in there twice but the way i see it the GIW are idiots so you know :) anyway, they won't be getting those for long. Shit's going to hit the fan soon. And i just wanna ask - are you a mind reader? hahaha you'll find out everything soon enough!

 **BloodRedPhantom:** Thank you so much for all your reviews! I'm incredibly happy that you like my story.

 **ShadowDragon357:** yeah, i thought about having Sam just buy the supplies but then her parents would be asking why she needed those certain things because she doesn't have any medical problems like that. And her account would still be monitored by them and her grandma so it would make it tough to buy those medical supplies. it sucks but another reviewer gave me a great idea and i'm going to see how i can work it into the story.

 **rylenosha:** Thank you so much for your idea. I'm not really a computer person and the deep web idea is so good! Thank you so much!

 **CaptainDorito:** Ugh! i understand about studies. Finals are this week and they're gonna suck. Anyway, thanks i really really wanted to show that Tucker and Sam are not friends just because of Danny, that they have their own chemistry and we never really got that through the show because there was always so much focus on Danny and Sam. I also wanted to show that they don't need Danny to fight because they've been doing this for three years now and they definitely know how to handle themselves. my thanksgiving was good too, lots of turkey lol. Good Luck on your finals!

 **Turkeyhead987:** I'm happy that the last chapter kept you on your toes :) that was something i tried really hard to accomplish. I'm sorry you didn't like Seraphina. Was it only because of the character acting OOC? if you could let me know either in a PM or review that would be greatly appreciated because she will be showing up at another point in this story. I'm happy that she didn't turn you away from the story and i hope that you liked this chapter! :)


	15. Concern

Thank you so much for the reviews from: **Turkeyhead987, ShinyMudkipGal, ShadowDragon357, Icypoolthewarrio, Savirox, SamXDanny, Great,Wow, CaptainDorito** and **KoriCarrigan.**

Review answers at the bottom: **Turkeyhead987** , **ShadowDragon357,** **Savirox,** **Great**

I hope you enjoy this chapter! I know it's a bit slow, but we can't have every chapter be an action chapter, sadly. I would like to see a minimum of **seven reviews** again. I would say more because it's the holidays but I'll stand with my solid **seven**.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom of the lyrics from Taylor Swift's song 'Never Grow Up'

* * *

 **Oh I don't wanna grow up, wish I'd never grown up**

 **It could still be simple**

 **Oh darling, don't you ever grow up**

 **Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little**

 **Oh darling, don't you ever grow up**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Concern**

 **Word count: 5,676**

 **12/21/15**

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 **September 15** **th** **, 2014**

 **Monday**

 **Casper High**

 **Morning**

The morning went easier for all of them than what they thought. Danny felt better than what he did the night before however he still had trouble walking and his arm was in constant pain. Jazz tried to get him to drink one of the glasses of healing tea from Dora's, but he refused saying she needed it more than him. Jazz was very demanding and was able to get him to take two drinks from her cup that morning.

Sam made sure that Danny wore a leg brace to keep his leg movable throughout the day, but hopefully lessened the pain. They wrapped his chest for his ribs and made him wear an arm brace. Sam had taken out most of the stitches except for the large cut along his chest and on his back. She wasn't happy that the injuries were still visible but knew it was better than having stitches on as well. They said good-bye to Jazz and told her to tell them when she got back to school and if anything happened with her arm.

Sam and her hugged first, Jazz told her to "Hold on and that everything would work out in the end." Tucker was second and he promised her that he would watch out for both of them and keep them on track. Danny was the last one to pull her into a soft hug, not wanting to hurt either of them anymore than what they were.

"Thank you." He whispered into her ear.

"Of course. You're my brother and I love you." She whispered back

"I love you, too."

"Please try to be careful this week."

He chuckled, "I'll do my best."

She pulled back and looked him square in the eye, "Danny."

"I promise, Jazz."

She rolled her eyes before leaning up and kissing him on the cheek before pulling away completely. She told them to keep her in the circle for all the information they gathered before she was on her way.

They left Sam's house fairly early and were surprised to see that there were only a few ghosts roaming about. However they were mainly level 2 ghosts and Danny knew they could let them be. Sam made sure to stop by Danny's house first because he didn't have the right clothes over at Sam's since he brought them home to wash them and to make sure he met up with his parents. Just because he didn't love them the same way as he did when he was younger, did not mean he wanted them pissed off at him. Sadly, his mom informed him that he was grounded for three days from video games and from going anywhere for not contacting them all weekend. After telling them he would abide by his grounding he ran – read: carefully walked – up to his room and grabbed a pair of sweatpants and wore a white long-sleeve T-Shirt underneath a Dumpty Humpty concert shirt. He grabbed another long sleeve shirt to put under his gym shirt and was back in the car. They hadn't needed to stop by Tucker's as he had clothes over at Sam's.

When they got to school Sam and Tucker stuck to Danny like glue. But he didn't feel as if Sam and Tucker were suffocating him, he was incredibly grateful for their protectiveness because the crowds were a bit overwhelming for him. They made it through their first two classes without any incidents. However, making their way to their third class period, Algebra II and Pre-Calc they had a run in with Dash. Typical banter ensued like normal and Dash left after shoving Danny hard in the chest into the lockers, knocking the breath out of him and his ribs began hurting even more. Sam was 99.9% positive that they had been re-broken. They took him down to the first floor boys' bathroom that was deemed haunted because that was where Danny usually went to transform. Sam put new gauze over the cut on his back as well because it opened again and had to re-tape and wrap his ribs, hoping they could make it through the rest of the day without anything worse happening.

When it became time to leave Danny alone for one of his classes both Sam and Tucker had a hard time leaving him alone. Oddly enough Sam was the one to talk Tucker down and drag him to their own class. But when the class was over Sam and Tucker were there waiting against the lockers when he came out as if they had never left. But again Danny didn't mind.

He didn't like admitting this to them or really himself but he was feeling much more skittish than he thought he would be. Every little thing made him jump and at times certain things someone said or did he would flashback to his time with them. Some things he had already remembered however others were things that seemed to jog other memories he hadn't remembered. It was worse than his normal flashbacks because he wasn't sure what was coming. And it was freaking him out.

During the day Danny and the others noticed how Valerie was absent in each of their classes. They figured she was fighting the ghosts that Danny couldn't. Danny really wanted to go help her but the others were able to get him to understand that she would be fine and after school they would take the time to go patrol as long as he promised to stay inside and heal and let them take care of everything. He wasn't extremely pleased with the idea, but knew he couldn't argue when both of them were solidly on the same side. It was hard to fight them when they would take the same side on things.

It was when the trio was heading to ghost 101 that things got worse. The walk from Sam's mythology class was a slow one, ending just outside the open classroom door. He couldn't bring himself to enter the room. To see Agent Z. Danny thought he'd be fine but his breathing became quicker and shallower, it felt as though the walls were closing in around him and pushing him towards the door.

He felt Sam's smaller warmer hand slide into his own cooler one, giving him a reassuring squeeze. Tucker's arm wrapped around his shoulders. Their presence lifted the ever present anxiety that bore down upon him. He knew he could do this with them by his side. It was a necessary step from moving on and dealing with his capture and torture.

Danny let out a deep sigh and led the way into the classroom. Agent Z was seated at his desk but Danny kept moving towards their seats in the back of the classroom – noticing Valerie sitting in her seat – just as the bell rang for the start of class. Sam and Tucker both moved their desks a bit closer to Danny's to make sure they were in constant contact.

"Good afternoon class, how are we this Monday?" Agent Z stood from his desk to address the class. There were grumbled remarks and sighs that answered him. "Well, it is a Monday so it could have been worse." He turned and pulled down the projection screen as the projector warmed up.

"What happened to Danny Phantom?" Paulina asked.

Danny tensed as well as the Agent. However, he was sure that no one else except Sam and Tucker noticed the Agent's quick tense in body. Agent Z turned to face Paulina, a tight smile formed on his lips. Danny knew a lie was about to spill from his mouth.

"After peacefully getting information we needed from Phantom we released him Saturday night." Most of the class cheered and began talking about how happy they were that their hero was free. Valerie let out an outraged cry and the trio groaned in annoyance.

"You just _let_ him _go_?" Valerie questioned loudly, catching the Agent's and the trio's ears.

"Yes, Valerie. There comes times where you must let your capture go. We will wait for him to become complacent again and then recapture him for the sole purpose of capturing him. There ae rules you have to abide by as a GIW." The trio all rolled their eyes at the cover up but let it go considering they didn't have to worry about Danny being in that place at the moment. They weren't exactly happy the Guys in White were painting themselves better than what they were. But it was something they had accepted a long time ago about them.

"Now we have gone over the basics of ghosts as well as few bits of their language we'll be talking the rest of this week on how to hurt a ghost as well as kill one. Can anyone tell me the four things that can hurt a ghost?"

The trio obviously kept their hands down. Although Valerie's was the quickest to rise among the class. "Concentrated ectoplasm, electricity or shocking, blood blossoms and the lesser known ectoranium."

He hit a button and a slide showed on the screen with the list Valerie said, "Very good. Now what can kill a ghost form this list?"

Again Valerie's hand shot in the air. Dany felt as though he couldn't breathe. "Blood blossoms, ectoranium and shocking a ghost, is how you kill them."

* * *

 _The lights above him were blinding. But after so long of seeing white he was surprised he knew where he was. The hard table beneath him was cold and he was still strapped down. A scientist and Agent Mendoza stood over him._

" _What is your obsession?" his grating voice commanded but Danny wouldn't tell him. He couldn't tell them anything because he didn't want them to win. He kept his gaze straight ahead becoming almost blinded with the bright light above him._

" _That's not the right answer."_

 _And then he was seizing. The smell of burnt skin wafted through the air and suffocated him as he was prodded with electricity. When the device was pulled away it took longer for his eyes to gain their focus and he was out of breath and craving water._

" _What are you on this place of existence for?" Danny scoffed and received another hit with the electrical prod, sending him convulsing under the restraints._

" _If you won't answer that then, how do you get out of the zone?"_

" _Thr Pratoiegn." He whispered when he caught his breath._

" _What?" Danny repeated what he said, not caring at this point. "What Portal?"_

" _Lalle."_

 _He was electrocuted again but was injected with ectoplasm as he almost passed out. "Can't be passing out. I'm not done."_

* * *

Danny?" He jerked, hitting what was touching him. He heard a gasp of pain come from his left and suddenly he was back in his ghost 101 classroom. Agent Z was lecturing up front still, none the wiser of what was going on in the back of his class.

Danny turned to his left to see Sam holding tightly to her lower arm. But she was looking at him with concern; no hint of anger was seen. On his shoulder he felt that Tucker's fingers were gripping him harder than before.

"Danny. You're okay now." She whispered. "You're not there anymore."

"Are you okay?" He leaned over to look at her arm but she only nodded.

"It'll only bruise. Nothing worse." She smiled, but Danny didn't like how it was so fake and presented to him.

"I'm so sor…"

"No." Her eyes went from showing deep concern to cursing, " _You_ don't have any reason to say sorry. I'll be fine. I'm a tough person, Danny."

He wanted to argue with her but she was right. She _was_ a tough person and there was no way he'd be able to get in an apology until she was calmer over this entire situation. Which of course probably wouldn't happen. But it was worth a shot.

During the rest of class Danny had to keep his focus as certain things Agent Z said or did would either have him flashing back, began to have him flashing back, begin to have a panic attack or freeze up. He tried to determine when they would hit him but they were too random, or things he thought would set him off didn't. Though it was hard, he always had Sam and Tucker there to bring him back and finally it was the end of class.

After class they left campus quicker than they had ever done and made their way to Danny's house. They figured it was easier to be able to look at all the information easier at Tucker's but given the fact that they didn't want to upset the Fenton parents they decided to stay the entire time at Danny's instead of heading to Tucker's once they were sure that Maddie and Jack wouldn't check on them.

Tucker set each of them up at a computer that he had brought. Sam took over on Danny's desktop once Tucker downloaded everything to the computer while he himself used his IPad. He made Danny a set up on his bed with Tucker's laptop so he could rest his body seeing as he wanted to go through the information they gathered even though Sam and him wanted him not to.

The first thing they were all looking into was what the GIW's real reason for being in Amity Park was. They had looked through reports and plans among meeting videos to determine what was going on and their worst thoughts were being confirmed. They found the base for their reason to be there in the fact they wanted to know why it was Amity Park that the ghost took such a liking to and why they didn't mass populate in other cities like Amity. They wanted to know how they were always getting out.

They were relieved that they GIW hadn't realized it was because of the Fenton Portal and Vlad's – not that anyone else besides them knew about it. Besides that they truly did want to study ghosts and understand how they came to be in this other dimension and if everyone in the human realm would end up in the ghost realm – they rolled their eyes at the name, even though it was accurate – they were on the search for the afterlife. Of course when they found this information Tucker gloated that he had been right when they started school but Danny and Sam just rolled their eyes.

The answer that made all their fears come out was that they were planning on destroying the Ghost Zone again. After the last fail of trying to nuke the entire Zone the GIW studied how everything flipped in the Zone compared to the human world and was currently in the stages of developing a weapon based on this knowledge. They had determined that if the Zone was a place for the afterlife no one would want to come back as a ghost because they wouldn't be themselves and they wanted to save the people of Earth from that terrible fate. Even if not _everyone_ became a ghost, they knew that it was better to be safe than sorry.

Tucker had just pulled up the information on the weapon they were creating when there was a knock on the door. Sam picked up a book to throw at Danny who had fallen asleep when Jack walked into the room. Tucker quickly pulled up a study guide for his history class so as to not be suspicious. He carried in a plate of chocolate chip cookies.

"Hello guys, Sam, Mads said the ones on the right are Vegan and the ones on the left are regular. Sorry the plate looks a little empty I had a few." He chuckled as he set the plate down.

"That's okay Mr. Fenton." Sam and Tucker showed him a small smile before they each gabbed a cookie.

"How's the studying going, Danny-boy?" Jack asked turning to the bed where his smile instantly turned into a frown, before looking back at the duo. "Is he okay?"

Tucker and Sam followed her gaze and saw that Danny was sprawled on the bed asleep, mouth wide open, the computer screen was black as it sat next to him. They knew he had to have fallen asleep a little bit ago because he had been a part of their discussion over the real reason the GIW were in Amity.

"Yeah, you see we had this big project for Ghost 101 over the weekend and Danny was getting really into it and we didn't get much sleep this weekend. Had no idea he had even fallen asleep." Tucker supplied.

The smile instantly returned to his face, "Oh, okay. What kind of project?"

"It was over the levels of ghosts and we had to create a PowerPoint to present on specific levels."

"You kids are going to have to show me that sometime." He smiled, "But right now me and Mads have to run up to the Guys in White's headquarters. They called us with some important information so we won't be back for dinner."

"Could we go to my house for dinner, Mr. Fenton?" Tucker asked.

He thought for a couple of seconds before looking at Danny, a frown marring his face again. "It'll be fine, as long as you, Sam drive him straight back. No stops you three… well two… you know what I mean."

"Okay." They both answered.

"Good." He turned and smiled at them, "Have fun kids!" He waved at them before moving quickly through Danny's door and closed it behind him.

Tucker pulled out his phone and made a quick call to his mom who was more than happy to have both Danny and Sam over for dinner.

"I love your mom."

"Don't let my dad hear you say that." Sam hit him with her pencil on the head, making him laugh.

"Shut up." She chuckled along with him. "I think you have the best mom out of us."

"She is pretty great isn't she?" He smiled at Sam. He knew that there was no point in pointing out the good qualities of her mother or Danny's because those didn't cover up the bad in them. But he did know how to make her a little happier, "But you have the best grandma of everyone in the world."

Sam openly laughed at this, "Okay, that's pretty true." She sighed and looked at Danny, "And he has the best sister in the universe."

"What are we just one upping our female relatives?" Tucker joked, Sam threw him a look. "Okay, Jazz is a pretty great sister." He paused looking at Danny as well, "He must be in a lot more pain than what we thought."

"His mind really needed this rest, not just his body." Sam said, watching him as well.

"He's gonna remember, Sam."

She sometimes hated that he was able to figure out her train of thoughts just as well as Danny. "And if he doesn't?"

"We'll come to that if we get to it." He shrugged. That was the best they were going to have to deal with this. What he didn't tell Sam though was that he'd do everything he could to get Danny to remember what happened all last week. He couldn't just tell him of course because it would be best for Danny to remember himself but he couldn't imagine them going back to how they were before they admitted their feelings. There was no way that it would end well for anyone.

They let Danny sleep for ten more minutes before waking him and making their way to the Foley's to eat dinner. Danny and Sam truly loved being over at the Foley's because of the warm atmosphere that surrounded them. They felt they were part of a real, normal family. Afterwards they decided to hang out for about an hour in Tucker's room before heading back to Fenton Works when Danny's ghost sense went off. For the first time all night.

"Are you kidding? You can't go out there right now." Tucker protested Danny who was standing before them in his ghost form, braces still on his arm and leg, ribs wrapped tight.

"I'll be fine." He waved them off.

"You're going to re-break your bones and you know who has to fix them? Me." Sam said annoyed. "Or you're gonna open up your cuts again and we'll have to stitch them and I know how much you hate stitches."

"If you're that worried then you guys should come with me."

"We were going to anyway."

"Then why are we standing here arguing about it?" Danny floated in the air.

"Because we think that you should stay here like you promised." Sam folded her arms across her chest.

"What!" Danny looked at the united front of Tucker and Sam. "You're serious."

"Yes, because you're still too hurt, maybe tomorrow or Wednesday would be better to get back in the swing of things when we know that your bones are more likely to be fully healed than not. Especially with the way your ribs are holding up after Dash and the lockers this morning." Sam responded in nurse mode.

"Sam, Tuck, I'll be fine. I've fought with worse injuries."

"But that doesn't mean you have to." Tucker jumped in.

"It's still better to go out and show that I'm out there than not. Especially after what the GIW said about them releasing me."

"They also said they were going to recapture you."

"Which is why I'll be safe with you guys around."

They stood glaring each other down a few minutes until Tucker let out a long breath. "Alright."

"Tucker!" Sam looked at him in shock. "They're going to be looking for us too! And we haven't figured out how were going to get around them, yet."

Tucker ignored her and continued looking Danny down, "If one thing goes sideways though, we're done. We go back home, got it?"

Danny smiled, "Yeah, okay. Come on, we'll stop by my parents place and get you guys jumpsuits with the hood, before we lose whoever it is." He stepped forward, Tucker wrapped an arm around him and Danny wrapped an arm around Sam who was not happy but knew it was better to be out with him than not.

* * *

 **September 15** **th** **, 2014**

 **Monday**

 **Foley Residence**

 **8:15 p.m.**

Mrs. Foley was getting concerned as she hadn't heard anything coming from upstairs in a while. She told Maurice that she was going to check on them.

"I'm sure they're fine." He waved off her concern as he read over information on his newest case.

She went upstairs despite what he thought just to ease her own thoughts. Upon reaching Tucker's door Angela knocked loudly three times, waited twenty seconds before turning the handle and walking into her son's room. Empty. She let out a loud sigh and tsked. Knowing that they wouldn't be back for another hour or so she closed the door and made her way back to the living room.

"They're gone." Angela sighed as she plopped herself back on the couch.

"And as I said before I'm sure they're fine." Maurice stated, still focused on his work.

"But Danny looked so weak earlier at dinner, did you see his eyes? They kept drooping and then they kept darting around like a caged animal. They should not have left to go fight ghosts. I'm sure Valerie could handle it."

"Well dear, you know that Danny can't leave the town to her, he has to make sure himself."

"Yes, but I'm sure he's incredibly injured after what those horrid GIW did to him. He could barely use his arm and he was limping. I'm sure there were worse things done to him. He needs to be in bed and healing."

She hated that she couldn't heal him or Sam and most definitely her own son when they received injuries from fighting ghosts. Of course this wasn't a new feeling. She was always having this thought in the back of her head when she found out about Danny seven months ago.

She had been out shopping for Maurice for Valentine's Day. She was heading into the mall when she saw Danny as Phantom fly out of the mall hitting a ghost that followed, in the face with an ectoblast before pulling out the well-known thermos and sucking up the ghost. There were few people out and about that day seeing as it was a Thursday in the middle of the day, but the few who were there clapped and cheered for him, before going on their way.

Angela was always interested in him after hearing Tucker and Sam talk about him. She had wondered for a while why Danny never spoke much on Phantom but duked it up to his parents. As she watched him though she was confused why he flew off a short distance and landed between two cars towards the end of the lot. She was about to turn away and head into the mall when a bright flash caught her eye and she watched in shock as Danny _Fenton_ walked out from between the two cars she had just seen Phantom hide behind. A car pulled up at the end of the aisle that she recognized to be Sam's car and watched as Danny hopped in the backseat, catching a glimpse of her son's red beret before they were gone.

She knew she must have looked like an idiot standing there at the end of her car, keys still in hand, purse almost falling from her wrist and mouth wide open in the cold. But she was still trying to process what she saw. Over the next few weeks she watched Phantom closely and when she came to terms with the fact he Danny Phantom and Danny Fenton were the same person she wanted to go into the Fenton household and rip Maddie and Jack a new one. But she kept her composure and told Maurice first. It took him a while to understand and accept who Danny was and what their son and someone they considered to be almost a daughter were doing.

He was the one who made her see that Maddie and Jack knew nothing of Danny being the ghost boy because he honestly believed that they would not hunt Danny if they knew he was their son. Maurice told her that they would have to do everything they could to make the trio's lives easier and to help them in any way they could. She agreed with him on this and not telling them because she didn't want them to think they had to act differently around them. They knew they could do more to help at a distance than up front. Though when the time came to tell the trio they knew it would be easier to tell _them,_ than for the _trio_ to tell _her and Maurice_.

"Once the ghost is captured they'll be back. Danny will be fine with Tucker and Sam with him."

But that didn't make her any less worried for their safety. "I just hope they're back soon." She was just grateful that they had each other.

* * *

 **September 16** **th** **, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **Casper High**

 **Afternoon**

Tuesday sadly went close to the same as the day before. Danny felt too warm with his long sleeves in the warm September weather but it was something he knew he could endure because he had done so in the summer. Because of his colder core temperature the cold never bothered him, but he got hotter a lot quicker.

Thankfully for Danny, Dash was not in school that day and did not have to worry about protecting himself or others from Dash or the other football players. The football team only acted on Dash's terms and Dash must have told them to leave all his usual's alone that day on accordance to the fact they hadn't been shoved into lockers or anything. Ghost 101 was tricky again but Danny focused on keeping his breathing even and imagined himself in a better place than in that classroom with Agent Z to help him start gaining better control of his PTSD. The crowds were still getting to him and he kept having flashbacks but he knew he could overcome it.

He was actually more concerned about Sam and Tucker for what they did at the headquarters than himself. He hoped that Jazz had given them the same opening as she had for him; that they could talk through anything as patient and psychiatrist. He hoped that they took her outstretched hand because he didn't want them to be messed up because of him. Of course he came to know a while ago that they chose this and he shouldn't be blaming himself, but he couldn't help it. He loved them too much to not to.

He was debating about talking to Jazz or not since he woke up and he still was unsure. He decided that he would give himself until next week Tuesday and if he didn't notice a change in himself than he was going to call her about what happened to him.

That night was spent looking over the information they gathered at Danny's again. Even though Sam and Tucker had _thought_ he had been awake when they were discussing about the GIWs plan to destroy the Ghost Zone, Danny actually had _not_ been awake.

"We thought you were just seething in anger." Tucker tried to cover up their mistake. "I don't know, we kinda just let you be."

"That's not a reason to be angry Danny so stop directing your anger towards us." Sam told him. She could have sworn she kept seeing a tiny spark of red in his bright green eyes. He was currently pacing a few inches above Tucker's floor in human form, eyes green and random things were being frozen whenever he uncrossed his arms.

"Sorry." He sighed and closed his eyes, but they were still green with anger. "Couldn't they have just given up! So what if they think _all_ people go to the Zone –which we know to be _false_ – why should they want to destroy that? Not all ghosts are evil for crying out loud!"

"We know, but this is the GIW. You know they don't give up."

"That doesn't mean they should go and destroy ean Gesi hoasm! Gesi hbau rerhin oegiwn way of life dnua rerish moc oinn nbred natu dunisbuepht thaas. How would they feel iofb rerewi bremgldn ni satfrged Nerbitzpiakhiegn oan rerish dnua pvruomriegn exverpmtiegn dnua ktoiltiegn rerish? Rerish woord sbin jgesut aos psdoinkfssfe aos thr Gesi!"

They let Danny rant on and on about the GIW and what they were doing to the ghosts in ghost language because they really wanted him to get it all out before they told him that they could barely understand him. They knew where his thoughts on the subject were however, because they had thought all this themselves. Such as the fact that if the ghosts were doing what the GIW were doing to them they would be just as pissed as the ghosts were at the moment.

Once Danny was done, they had to work him back into English. Thankfully it didn't take very long, which they were all very happy about but it was not their focus.

"What are we going to do to stop this?" Danny growled annoyed as he paced again in the air.

"We'll have to keep a close watch on your parent's portal and keep up-to-date on their weapons information because there really isn't much we _can_ do." Tucker shrugged.

Danny pinched the bridge of his nose and stopped in mid-air. Sam and Tucker were happy he didn't freeze anything again, "I guess that's the best we can do. We're not letting them get as close as they did last time." Danny growled again. Though Sam wasn't scared of him, the hair on her arms and the back of her neck rose involuntarily.

"We'll do everything we can, Danny. Now sit down so I can check you over."

It took a few seconds before Danny decided to oblige, not wanting Sam's wrath on him and took a seat on his bed to get checked over. He was still sitting there in anger, however Sam ignored that as she looked him over. She told him that his cuts were all healed except for the one on his back. She wanted him to wear the braces till this weekend at minimum, or until he felt no pain when moving them. She was disappointed to see that his ribs were still bruised and he was incredibly tender there. When she listened to his breathing and watched his diaphragm expand she was disappointed there as well when he couldn't take in deep breaths. Tucker grabbed the pain medication and made Danny take one pill even though he protested.

That night Danny wanted to go back out and capture the ghosts that seemed to be rampaging everywhere. However Sam and Tucker were adamant on him staying inside and resting. He needed to focus on healing himself instead of the ghosts. They knew it was part of who he was to not care about his injuries and get the job done anyway, however Sam threatened to stuff him in the Fenton Thermos for the rest of the night if he tried to leave the room to fight ghosts. He reluctantly let them go alone wearing the jumpsuits again and worked on homework for tomorrow. It was the least he could do since they had done his homework for him so many times before.

He hated being injured.

 **September 16** **th** **, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **Danny's Room**

 **4:45 p.m.**

* * *

I would love to hear what you thought about this chapter! Seven reviews again, please, guys!

Happy Holidays! I hope everyone enjoys their time off of school and being with their families!

Ghost Language Translations:

" _ **The Portals."**_

" _ **All."**_

"That doesn't mean they should go and destroy **a ghost's home! Ghosts have their own** way of life **and they don't need to disrupt that.** How would they feel **if we barged in and stated nit-picking on them and performing experiments and killing them? They would be just as pissed off as the ghosts!"**

 **Review answers:**

 **Turkeyhead987** : Thanks so much for your review. Okay great to know about Seraphina :) happy you enjoyed last chapter and I hope you liked this chapter even if it was kind of a filler.

 **ShadowDragon357:** Thanks again for telling me about the mess up I did about Sam and her food from last chapter. Yeah I've started doing some research on the deep web and it's pretty disturbing. Idk yet on the trio using it because I don't want to write it unless I have enough information for it to seem realistic and for it to be realistic for them. Yeah, when I wrote the last chapter it was so hard for me to write! Lol hope you enjoyed this chapter!

 **Savirox:** Hey, so I know that this was a small flashback but what did you think? And don't you worry your pretty little head there's most definitely going to be more flashbacks of the Headquarters.

 **Great:** yes, Tucker, Sam and Jazz did wear face coverings and dark clothes when they infiltrated the GIW. I think it was a short sentence in the chapter and with everything going on it's pretty easy to miss it. Yeah, I know you're not a mind reader lol. I'm also not making the little things hard to find and make big plot twists but there will be a few in the entire story and not just in this first book.


	16. Knight in Shining Armor

Hey guys! I hope everybody had a great Christmas! I know i did! It's kind of amazing the presents that can make you happy when you're an adult. like TV trays, and kitchen towels, and a wine rack and blankets and a clock to hang in my living room. Wow, I feel so grown up - sadly i am. Anyway, i hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas and is enjoying their time away from school. I'm using my time away from college to write more chapters for this story! lol

So I know that that last chapter many of you were dissapointed to find that Danny really does have memory loss. But some things have to happen for a reason *wicked author laughing*. Anyway, i'm so happy that you guys liked the last chapter and I really hope to hear about this chapter. So far it's one of my favorites, that I've written.

Thank you to my regular reviewers! I love hearing from you guys! you always make my day! **SamXDanny, ShinyMudkipGal, Savirox, ShadowDragon357, and CaptainDorito.**

 **Answers to Reviewers at bottom : CaptainDorito**

For this last chapter I didn't receive **7 reviews** but that's okay, it's the holidays so i'll over look it. But thank you so much to everyone who did review! I would like to see **7 reviews** at minimum for this chapter mainly because of how much is in here! And i really wanna know what you thought about this chapter!

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or A Great Big World's song lyrics to End of the World**

* * *

 **I wanna remember the shape of your lips**

 **Cause I wouldn't miss breathing as much as your kiss**

 **If the streets were on fire, well, we'd never know**

 **We'd be lost in each other instead of the smoke**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Knight in Shining Armor**

 **Word count: 4,113**

 **12/27/15**

* * *

 **September 18** **th** **, 2014**

 **Thursday**

 **Casper High**

 **Afternoon**

By the end of Thursday, Danny couldn't figure out what was going on with Sam and he knew he had to talk to Tucker about it. Yesterday was when he started seeing a big difference in her behavior and he couldn't understand. Tucker had backed off on being overprotective but Sam was still in strong mother bear mode. He understood her being a bit worrisome still but she was still all over the place while Tucker had backed off.

That Wednesday morning, Danny was surprised how much better he felt; he had gotten a full night's sleep. But he was unsurprised to see dark circles under Tucker's and Sam's eyes proving his thoughts to be true; that they had gone out and fought ghosts for him after they had left his house. He decided last night that that was the last night they were going to do that for him anymore. He had been able to wheedle them down on Monday night and he could do it again. Danny told them this as soon as Sam had picked up Tucker, wanting to get it out before the day really started.

Sam didn't take it so well, "No. Not going to happen."

"I think it's fine." Danny was happy that Tucker was on his side for this.

"What! Tucker he's still too hurt." She was gripping the steering wheel incredibly tight.

"I've fought with worse broken ribs, Sam." He defended himself, he may love her but she was being very unlike herself and he wasn't going to take it. "You can't stop me anyway."

"Like hell I can." She shot a glare his way before looking back to the road.

"Sam." Tucker's voice was a tad colder, "He'll be fine and we'll be out there with him like Monday night."

She grumbled unintelligibly under her breath, but did not say anything else as they made their way into school after parking the car. Throughout the rest of the day Tucker and Sam were still protective but Tucker was much less so than Sam was, but Danny was okay with it because he hated when she was mad at him and didn't talk. That night she had been more protective as they fought ghosts than she was at school and it had started to annoy him again.

Then Today happened and Danny couldn't take it anymore. Tucker was back to acting like himself, however Sam insisted on being as close to him as possible. Normally this wouldn't bother him, he would welcome it actually but right now it was pissing him off. Then she was still extremely overprotective of him when they hunted ghosts later in the evening, which he would find endearing at times, but he had to figure out what was going on with her and why Tucker wasn't acting the same as her.

After insisting on driving him home, he let her, however once she had left for her own home – her grandma and parents were back – he flew to Tuckers again. The flying still hurt his ribs but he knew they were getting closer to being fully healed. He figured he had a few more days left before he was in the all clear. He flew in through Tucker's wall and changed back as he saw it was clear.

Having felt the drop in temperature Tucker turned to face his guy best friend and raised an inquiring brow, "And you're back because?"

Danny knew it was best to come straight out and say what he was thinking than to beat around the bush. "Why is Sam being way overprotective and you're acting like yourself? I mean I understand that things are tough right now, but God she's been driving me insane these past two days."

Tucker sighed and gestured for Danny to take a seat on his bed. He followed Tucker's direction and sat down as he took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt after rubbing his eyes. He took so long cleaning them that Danny was on the verge of opening his mouth when Tucker put them back on his face. He let out another long breath, clasped his hands together and leaned forward placing his forearms on his knees.

"You really shook us, Danny. I mean the only time I've been so scared was when you went to fight Pariah Dark and the whole thing with Dan. You really scared us man."

Danny looked down at the floor, unable to meet Tucker's gaze. "I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault."

He looked back up, eyes quickly flashing green, "Yes it was. I was an idiot and not watching my surroundings and I got captured."

"The only person you should be blaming is Vlad because…"

" _Vlad_." Danny scoffed. "The one we haven't seen in person since before school started, who has something up his sleeve and we don't know what."

"You're not here to complain about Vlad." Tucker quickly said wanting Danny to stay on track. Danny knew he was right. It wasn't as if those things he was thinking weren't true but he could work those out once Tucker told him why Sam was acting the way she was.

"You're right. I came to ask about Sam."

"Look, do you love her?" Danny could see the hardness in his eyes that made him think this wasn't some random thing.

"Of course. I love you both."

"You know that's not what I meant." Tucker eyed him.

"Yes. Yes, I love her."

A smile pulled up at the corner of Tucker's lips but he made sure to keep looking serious. "And if something horrible, like what happened to you, happened to her, how would you respond?"

Danny growled not liking what he said at all, his eyes flashed green quickly again before going back to normal. "I wouldn't let her out of my sight. I wouldn't want her to go anywhere unless I was right next to her." The silence filled the air and Danny still was unsure of where Tucker was going with this. It didn't explain why Tucker wasn't still overprotective as well. "But you're so calm now."

"No I'm not." He bit back. "I just know when it's time to give you back that space. Sam's been trying but it's hard for her."

"Why?"

Tucker yet again pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, "Do you have any of your memories back yet?"

Danny shrugged even though Tucker couldn't see him. "I have a few back. Why?"

Tucker looked up suddenly and put his glasses back on, "What? You do! Why didn't you tell us?"

"Because they're mainly from when I was with the GIW."

"Oh." Tucker pursed his lips. "Have you talked to Jazz?"

"No. But I'm doing better with the flashbacks."

"Danny." Tucker glared at him, "you need to talk this out."

"I thought I was here about Sam?" he tried to get away from this small detour.

"Yes, but after you tell me you're going to talk to Jazz."

"I'll be fine, Tuck." But he continued to glare at him. He knew he would have to give in. "Okay! Okay, you win. I'll talk to her."

Tucker smiled happily, "Good. Maybe they'll help your memories come back." He caught Danny's eyes again and he didn't look away knowing it was going to be important what he said next. "Sam is also being like herself but this extreme version is something you're going to have to find the reason to on your own. Because your answer is in your memories and when you _do_ remember you'll have your answer. I promise."

"But…" Danny paused not liking his next thought, but said it anyway, "what if I never remember?"

"Then we'll find some memory ghost to retrieve them." Tucker shrugged. "You have to do this yourself because if I just told you she would kick my ass."

Danny laughed, "Yeah, that's our Sam." They shared a smile, "Thanks man."

"Always. Now go home and get some sleep before you're woken up by ghosts in the middle of the night."

Danny laughed and got up from Tucker's bed, "Yeah, yeah. See you tomorrow." They gave each other a quick hug and Danny was back on his way home.

Tucker stood rooted in the same spot for a few seconds before pulling out his phone and dialed Sam's number.

* * *

 **September 19** **th** **, 2014**

 **Friday**

 **Tucker's house**

 **Afternoon**

Through the rest of the night and well into Friday, Danny focused all his energy on trying to remember his memories of last week. He was happy to say that a few things were becoming clearer but he was positive that he had yet to remember what Tucker told him he needed to.

Though he was pretty lost in his thoughts he could still feel that hovering from Sam. Like he told Tucker he normally loved having her close to him like this, but she typically wasn't hovering. The hovering was driving him up the wall like it had when Jazz was the one doing it. But he kept his mouth shut and kept trying to focus on the holes in his memory.

He just wanted to remember.

After school they were over at Tucker's house because Danny's grounding was finally lifted. Though they could only stay for a few hours until Tucker had to get ready to go with his mom to an event with his dad's law firm.

Those few hours were spent going over information again: who the GIW had in custody and the information they had gathered from each individual. They weren't as surprised as what they thought to find out that there weren't many ghosts in their custody. Only 4 or 5. The information the GIW had on ghosts were things that were general knowledge in the ghost fighting business.

When Tucker's mom called up and told him that it was time to get ready, Sam and Danny headed out after making plans to meet up at Nasty Burger in the afternoon. Sam herself wanted to hangout more with Danny, but she was unable to. Her parents were hosting a charity function in her own home and her grandma had told her she needed to attend since she had skipped out on the last one.

"I can just fly home, Sam. No big deal."

"No, no I'm going to drive you. It's fine."

"Really, I feel way better than yesterday." Which was true. He did. "I won't hurt myself."

She rolled her eyes and opened the driver's side door. "Get in the car, Danny."

"Sam." He said in his _are you kidding me right now_ voice.

"Danny." Sam mimicked.

He huffed out a sigh, "Fine." And got in the car, missing her triumphant smile.

The start of the car ride was filled with tense silence. In the silence Danny was growing more and more impatient with his memories and Sam. Which is why when they pulled up in front of his house, he unbuckled quickly, turned towards her and asked,

"Why are you still being so overprotective?"

She turned her lilac eyes towards him, a questioning look in them, "What do you mean?"

"I _mean_ ," he emphasized, "that Tucker has pretty much backed off on hovering over me all the time, yet you're still going like everything happened yesterday."

Danny could see the glint of understanding in her eyes now, but she played him off, "No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"No, Danny I'm not."

"Yes, you are, Sam."

They were glaring at each other, "No I am…"

"Then explain why you were so insistent on driving me home." Sam scoffed and rolled her eyes. He was actually surprised she hadn't said something witty back to him. "You don't have any other reason, do you?" When she didn't respond he goaded her again, "Do you?"

"I almost lost you." She growled out, looking back up at him fiercely in the eye.

He hadn't expected her to say that, "What?"

"I almost lost you." He could see the formation of tears in her eyes, though her voice stayed strong. "And to those idiotic GIW, not even a ghost or Vlad or for God sakes _Valerie_. Do you know what that's like? To have your heart beating so fast in your chest and the adrenaline of everything going on around you, your mind going a million miles a minute and then have it all stop on a dime and your breath is knocked out of you because you see that one person and you don't know if they're alive or dead?"

"Yes." Danny didn't have to think on his response. He knew exactly what she was talking about. He had felt like that, he had lived it before when he saw them get blown up at the Nasty Burger. Of course they had been saved by Clockwork, but he still had nightmares about that day. He could remember incidents when they were out fighting ghosts and her or Tucker would get seriously injured and sometimes he would see them passed out and he couldn't tell if they were still alive or not. Those few seconds of not knowing drowned out the world. "I know what that's like."

"And yet you sit here asking me why I've been overprotective for a total of five days? Do you remember how overprotective you were after Dan? You didn't give me or Tucker or even Jazz any space for a minimum of two weeks. And me and Tucker haven't even been as bad as we were after the whole Ghost King incident. That was the only time I've ever felt so severely like this. And me and Tucker are still overprotective because of that. I almost lost you to the GIW. I just… I can't… I just can't lose you. You're too important to me."

Sam really wanted to kiss him after she told him this. She knew that if he still had his memories then she would have had no qualms about it, but she couldn't right now. Tucker had called her and told her that Danny was going to focus on getting his memories back before he talked to her or both of them about their protectiveness. But she knew he hadn't remembered because of the fierce look in his eyes when he asked her.

Danny was feeling the same emotion as Sam; all he wanted to do was pull her close and kiss her and assure her that he wasn't going to go anywhere. But he didn't want to jeopardize their friendship. There was a nagging feeling in the back of his mind telling him to ignore that thought, but he couldn't do that, so he did the next best thing and cupped her cheek with his left hand. He ran his thumb back and forth just under the corner of her eye.

"I'm not going anywhere." His voice was soft compared to her hard tone.

She shook her head but left his hand in place, "I don't _want_ you to go anywhere. But I can't look past the probability that it will happen. That probability is too high and I'll do everything I can to stop it."

"I promise you that I won't…"

"Don't make a promise you can't keep." Her voice was sharp again, though Danny could hear the worry and stress behind it.

" _Unwillingly_ ," he kept going, "leave you or Tucker or Jazz or Dani." Because that was the only way he could go, the only other time however, "But if I have to I will protect my family. _And you are my family_."

"I hope it never comes to that." She whispered knowing that no matter how much she hoped it wouldn't come true, it was inevitable.

They both were unsure how long they sat in that position. Eyes locked, Danny's hand still on her cheek, bodies turned towards each other, Sam's body protesting against the seat-belt she was still wearing. Sam however came out of their trance first remembering that she needed to get home and get ready for the charity event, no matter how much she didn't want to go.

"I have to leave now." She sighed, looking away from him.

His hand dropped, "And your mom said no friends at this one?"

She smiled sadly, "That's what she said. Unless of course you wanna clean up and pull off a shining knight in armor trick again." She scoffed and shook her head at the crazy thought. "I'll see you at the Nasty Burger tomorrow." She leaned up and kissed his cheek before pulling away.

But Danny didn't move. He kept staring vacantly at her, "Danny?" but he didn't even blink. "Hello? Danny?" She waved and snapped twice in front of his face.

That got his attention. He blinked a few times and sucked in a sharp, shuddering breath. He found her eyes again and Sam could have sworn she'd never seen a happier look on his face, "I remember." He whispered so low Sam had to strain to hear him.

But she had heard him and before she could say or _think_ anything really, Danny's hands were covering her cheeks again and pulled her towards him. When their lips met Sam let her eyes close as Danny did and relished in the fact she was kissing him. His lips were cool against hers as they kissed gently with closed lips. Sam felt as though she was in a dream, the best dream as she tried to move closer to him, wrapping both of her arms around his neck. Danny felt energy circling around them and he moved one hand to her waist and the other to the back of her neck ignoring the pain in his chest and lungs.

They pulled away too quickly for either of them, but kept their lips touching as Danny sucked in a few breaths. Their hands stayed in place and kept their eyes closed as their breaths spilled across the other.

"I'm in love with you."

Sam opened her eyes to see his bright blue ones staring back at her. And not just any stare, she could feel the love he felt for her through his eyes. He looked at her as if she was a goddess and he a mere mortal. She felt blood rush to her cheeks because she had never been looked at that way before, but she knew that she was looking at Danny the same way.

"I'm in love with _you_." She loved the feeling of their lips together as they said those words. "God, I'm so in love with you it hurts."

Danny let out a breathy chuckle and closed his eyes before kissing her deeper. Sam's hands slid into his hair as they kissed with open mouths, not able to get enough of the other. Sam reached down with one hand to release her seat belt, getting annoyed at the restriction, but kept her focus on Danny. She sighed as his tongue ran across her lower lip and opened her moth wider to allow him entrance. His hand tightened on her waist and curled itself into the ends of her hair. She relished in the feel of his mouth and his lips and the energy sizzling around them as if they were creating their own force field. Not liking that Danny was taking full control at the moment she moved close to him, the center console now biting into her lower stomach, she lightly bit his lower lip eliciting a deep moan from him before he pulled away from her mouth completely. Sam didn't have long to wonder what he was doing as he began to leaving cooling kisses a long her neck.

"Danny." She moaned, head tilting back to give him more access; she could feel him smirk against her neck. Danny tantalizingly slow made his way back up to her mouth. Her hands made their way around him tightening their hold as they got lost in themselves. A pained gasp and groan jerked them both back to reality, like cold water over their heads. "Sorry."

Sam let go of him quickly and replaced her hands on top of his shoulders lightly. Danny pulled himself upright to ease the pain in his ribs. He kept his hands around her, but focused on his breathing, knowing he pushed himself too much.

"I thought our focus was to _not_ let me hurt myself anymore." He chuckled when his breathing was steadier.

"Don't make me hit you." Her eyes narrowed.

He chuckled, "What and injure me further? You don't have the guts."

She knew he was teasing and rolled her eyes. "You're an idiot."

"But you love me anyway." A bubble of warmth filled her chest at those words making her feel as though she could fly on her own.

"I love you anyway." She smiled at him, "You really remember?"

"Everything." Danny brought his left hand from behind her head, up to cup her cheek again. "Every last little thing. And I mean it now as I did then; I'm in love with you." He chuckled and shook his head.

"What's so funny?" Sam cocked her head to the side.

"It's just that I've loved you for a long time now and it's funny because everybody has called us lovebirds and it's so true and we could have been together so long ago."

"Yeah, clueless one." Sam chuckled as he stuck his tongue out at her. "Let's see," she pretended to think. "I think my crush on you started in seventh grade."

Danny shocked himself and Sam as he laughed loudly, shattering the once quiet air. "Oh gods, we're such idiots."

"Excuse me?"

Danny gained control of his laughter and reached for her hands on his shoulders, holding them over the center console. His larger hands completely dwarfed her smaller ones. "My crush started on you in the middle of seventh grade, too." This had Sam joining in with him on a new round of laughter making it hard to calm down. "We really are lovebirds aren't we?" She locked eyes with his crystal eyes again.

"Will you be my girlfriend?"

Sam rolled her eyes, "That's sort of a given, but yes," She smiled wider and he did too, "Of course I'll be your girlfriend."

Danny leaned forward and kissed her briefly.

"So is it official when I wear the ring?"

"What ring?"

"The ring you gave me to hold for Valerie? It actually has my name engraved on it. Upside down, but still my name."

His eyes widened in realization, "Oh! Oh yeah I forgot about that thing." He shrugged, wincing slightly. "I don't know that doesn't really seem _us_ , you know? We're not exactly traditional."

Sam chuckled and squeezed his hands, "No, no were not." And because she could, she kissed him. It took another minute or so for them to pull away from the other, but they stayed extremely close.

"I'll get you something you'll _actually_ like."

"You don't have to."

"I want to though."

"Well, then I'm getting you something to show that you're mine." Danny opened his mouth to protest but Sam uncurled one of their hands and held a finger to his lips silencing him. "Just because we're together doesn't mean I'm changing my way of doing things."

She pulled her finger away and intertwined their hands again as Danny chuckled. "I would hope not. Otherwise me and Tucker are screwed."

Sam laughed loudly until her eye caught the clock on her Dashboard. "Shit, my grandma is going to kill me."

"Have fun tonight." He leaned down and kissed for the fourth time that night before pulling away. He opened his own door and grabbed his backpack and shut it again once he was out.

Sam rolled down the window and he leaned down the best he could to see what she was going to say, "I love you." She smiled as a blush crept up her neck.

"I love you, too."

"Pick you up at eleven?"

"How about I pick you up instead?" He smiled then stepped away from her car.

"Danny!" She yelled after him but he kept walking towards his front door, throwing her a wave over his head. She rolled her eyes again and pulled out of the driveway.

They both felt happier than they had in a long time as they still felt the lingering touch of the others lips on their own. They finally did it. Now they just had to brace themselves for Tucker's reaction _and_ their first date.

 **September 19** **th** **, 2014**

 **Friday**

 **Fenton Works**

 **6:20 p.m.**

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Yay! Our lovebirds are finally together! Wahoo! God, finally that took forever! *evil laughter*

Hint for next chapter: Tucker, Jazz, fist date!

Anyway, i hope you all had a great holiday and enjoy you're New Years! I won't see you again until next year! lol ;)

Don't forget, I would like **7 reviews** for this chapter.

 **Review Answers:**

 **CaptainDorito:** I love you so much! oh my gosh when i read your review it totally made my day! I couldn't stop smiling when i read it :) I loved how you noticed that little bit i put in about Sam's body reacting to the fear Danny was admitting even though mentally she knew she wasn't in any danger. It's always about the little things you know? And yep, PTSD Danny. I also think the other two have slight cases of it and we'll definitely be seeing more of them trying to deal with it. Thank you so much for sticking with me so far! You're my number one reviewer and i always look forward to what you have to say. (I promise there's no pressure!) :) Anyway, my Christmas went well. I hope yours did too! See you next year! lol


	17. Connection of Souls

Happy New Year's Everyone! Wow! It's 2016. It's so weird. But then again it's weird every year. I hope everyone enjoyed their New Years! This was my first year I was able to go to a party for New Years and drink. Very interesting. Anyway, I hope that everyone is ready for this chapter! I know I am :) I was going to make you guys suffer and put their first date in the next chapter but I said 'what the hell' and put it in this chapter. SPOILER! Lol.

For some reason the reviews are not showing up? I have three reviews recently made that aren't showing up. I have no idea why and whoever you are I'm so sorry that I can't respond to you yet. BUT DON'T WORRY! I sent an email to Support and hopefully they'll get the views up soon. SO PLEASE POST YOUR REVIEWS and when it gets fixed they'll appear later.

If you're worried about me not seeing your review, I ask you to review on the story and then PM me your review if it's not fixed by the time you review.

Thank you to all my reviewers! You guys are so great and I love you all so much! **ShadowDragon357, CaptainDorito, SamXDanny, Arrowkid21, Guest, Capitolblonde, and whoever made the three reviews that aren't showing up!**

 ****Review Replies** **: ShadowDragon357, CaptainDorito, SamXDanny, Arrowkid21, and Capitolblonde**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or the song lyrics from Death of a Bachelor from Panic! At the Disco. It's an awesome song, go check it out!**

* * *

 **Happy ever after**

 **How could I ask for more?**

 **A lifetime of laughter**

 **At the expense of the death of a bachelor**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Connection of Souls**

 **Word count: 11,635**

 **1/3/16**

* * *

 **September 20** **th** **, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **Manson Mansion**

 **10:45 a.m.**

Though Danny had to go out that night and fight and capture more than a few ghosts – including the Box Ghost – he didn't let them get to him. He set many alarms on his phone and on his alarm clock on his night stand; he made sure to set the 3 alarms apart enough and made it blaringly loud to make sure he was awake with enough time to get ready and get Sam. Even though he had started planning their date last night he wanted to look his best today because of Sam.

He must have been giddier than what he thought because even though the ghosts kept him up well into the early morning he was able to get up at a reasonable hour with a smile on his face. He couldn't remember waking up this tired and still being extremely happy and ready to go. And strange. Even though things seemed to be starting to get crazy again, _really crazy_ , him and Sam just felt right.

Like things were finally starting to fall into place.

Before he left for Sam's he left a quick curtesy note for Jack and Maddie on the kitchen table, telling them he was at the Nasty Burger. He hoped they wouldn't ground him again. He flew to Sam's, landing along the side of the house out of sight before walking around to the front of the house and up to the large front door before knocking twice. Butterflies were bouncing around in his stomach, but he wasn't sure if it was because he was excited to see Sam or because he was nervous about who would open the door.

Or both.

Probably both.

The door slowly opened revealing her father standing there looking at Danny with a questioning look. He found it odd that he noticed it now, but he was a few inches taller than Mr. Manson. He wondered why her father was looking at him with confusion when he realized he typically didn't ring the doorbell! Normally he would have walked into their home on a normal Saturday without a second thought. But this _wasn't_ a normal Saturday and he felt he had to act more on the boyfriend side of things, which included knocking on her front door. But he hadn't been in this situation in such a long time he blanked on what he needed to say.

"Sam is upstairs." Jeremy opened the door further inviting Dany in, the confused look still on his face.

"Thanks."

He rushed out and hurried through the door and up the front winding staircase. He tried to keep the butterflies in his stomach down, however they only seemed to get worse. Danny had reached the landing and took a left down the hallways towards her room. God, it was just Sam why was he getting so freaked out. _Sam_ was _Sam_. Just because they kissed didn't mean they should act any different. Well, beside the fact they could kiss whenever they felt like it. That thought sent a grin reaching across his face. He still couldn't believe how stupid they'd been after so long. True happiness that he hadn't felt in a long time bubbled up through him as he made his way through Sam's open door. She was sitting in one of her reading chairs over by the window, her sketch pad open and pencil moving across the page, Nickelback played in the background surprisingly at a reasonable level.

"Hey." He called softly making his way over to her. She must have been in the zone because she didn't respond to his call. He wasn't discouraged though and stood there watching her for a moment, not caring if he looked a bit creeperish. His face had taken shape on her sketch pad along with his upper torso. No matter what it still amazed him how good Sam was at Art. She mainly drew him and Tucker but there were sketches of ghosts and the Zone and other little things she found interesting. When he looked at the picture of him now though that Sam was drawing he was reminded of the fact that they had grown up so much.

Even when they were younger he thought Sam was pretty but these past few years was when he truly started seeing her in a beautiful light. Though her dark exterior was known for scaring off many people he knew that the clothes she wore didn't define her entire character. He personally loved her in her dark clothes. Actually he loved it when she wore his clothes, but she only did that on some occasions. Anyway, he mentally shook his head, he could see past that dark exterior and to the kind amazing, strong, open woman he loved to the Zone and back. He loved that he could say that to himself and out loud now.

And that was the truth, he loved everything about Sam. From the way she looked physically down to the last thought that ran through her head. From the way she would laugh with so much happiness that if flowed into anyone surrounding her, even to the way she was insanely overprotective. Of course he got a bit pissed off about those types of tendencies but it was a part of who she was. Even now as she did something so small he loved the concentration of her eyes, the furrow of her brows, the way she was biting the inside of her lower lip on the left side. He was just happy they now had all the time in the world to be together – even with all this shit going on.

Danny moved till he stood next to her, "Hey." He reached down and touched her arm.

"Ah!" She jumped, the pad and pencil flew from her hands and landed harshly on the floor. She turned to glare at him as he started laughing. "If you tell Tucker, I'll post a very embarrassing photo of the two of you."

"The one when we were fourteen with the purple-back gorilla?" Danny asked between laughs.

"No." Sam's smile turned sinister as she reached down and grabbed her book off the floor.

That smile of course made Danny stop laughing instantly, "Which photo are we talking about here?"

She gave an innocent shrug and got up from her chair. "I guess we'll see if you tell Tucker or not." She patted him on the shoulder before pulling herself onto her toes to kiss his cheek before moving to place her sketching pad on her desk.

"Damn it." He muttered turned around as well and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"You two will never be able to one up me." She chuckled.

"Not like we shouldn't try." He pursed his lips.

Sam turned to face him after placing down the sketch pad. He was surprised to find that he couldn't read the expression on her face. She moved towards him quickly and he reflexively took a step back because sometimes you never knew with Sam. But when she smiled up at him he stopped moving and opened his arms. She molded against him as her arms came up and interlocked behind his neck, his own wrapped around her tiny waist. He leaned down as she stood on her toes and kissed each other.

"Ahem." The pulled apart instantly and looked towards the door where Ida Manson was sitting on her scooter.

Both of their cheeks blushed and they let go of each other as she made her way into the rest of Sam's room. "Uh, hi grandma."

She chuckled and came to a stop in front of them. "I am very happy for the both of you." She smiled up at them.

"Thank you." They both mumbled out still embarrassed about being caught.

Ida laughed and waved them off. "Don't be embarrassed kids, everybody does it." She winked at them.

"Grandma!" Sam laughed in shock. Danny felt his cheeks heat up further.

"What?" She looked at them innocently, "It's not like it's not common knowledge." She chuckled as they rolled their eyes.

"What's up, Grandma? Did you need me to do anything?"

Ida smirked at the re-route in conversation. "Oh no, dear. I just wanted to see it for myself is all."

Sam shook her head and just because he could and Ida was okay with them, Danny reached to the side and grabbed her hand. She looked up at him as she readjusted her fingers around his hand; he gave her a shrug in response.

"Okay, then. Well," She turned back to Ida, "We're going to head out now. I'm not sure when we'll be back." She pulled Danny to her desk where she grabbed her small dark purple cross body purse.

"Don't have to tell me twice. Tell Tucker I said hello."

"Will do, grandma." Danny said and they each kissed Ida's cheek before making their way down the stairs.

Ida sighed as she watched them go. "I hope they don't ruin this." She mumbled aloud before driving back towards her room.

"So that was a pretty bold move." Sam said as they walked down the street to the Nasty Burger. Sam wanted to drive while Danny wanted to fly, so they compromised on walking.

"Well it was only in front of _grandma_ , I don't think it was _that_ bold."

"True." She pursed her lips and started swinging their arms back and forth slightly. "But as a starting boyfriend move it was pretty bold for you."

Danny chuckled, "It's weird. When I was on my way over to your house and even before I saw you I was really nervous."

"You were?" Her brows furrowed but kept her focus ahead of her on the street as Danny was doing.

"Well yeah," he glanced at her quickly before looking ahead again. "I mean we have to figure out, you know how to go from being best friends to, you know…"

"Being together?" He could hear her smirking and turned to throw her a quick glare. She turned as well and they held both of their gazes for two second before Danny stuck his tongue out at her. Sam did as well before they turned away again and focused on the sidewalk.

"Yes, being together. But I don't know, it just feels right, now." He shrugged but kept their hands swinging slightly. "It feels… normal."

"It does, doesn't it?" I don't feel awkward or anything."

"Probably because we've been acting like this for a long time." He chuckled.

"Well I don't feel weird or that this is hard so I guess that's why." She shrugged.

Danny chuckled and the sign for the Nasty Burger appeared in their line of sight. "You ready to tell Tucker?"

"No way. He's going to have to figure it out himself."

"Himself?" Danny turned and arced his brows at her.

"Yes. Because with everything he's done to make fun of us over the years he can figure it out himself. It probably won't even take him very long."

"Alright, Sam, whatever you say." He chuckled but found he liked her way of thought at the moment. "Where's he sitting, do you know?"

"In our usual booth in the back corner."

When they entered the restaurant they were met by the typical Saturday afternoon fever. The local pop station was on loud and the chatter of people created a buzz that was easily ignored by the couple. They made their way through the throng of high school and older middle schoolers to the back corner of the Nasty Burger where they spotted Tucker.

"Hey Tuck." They greeted together and both sat down in the seat across from Tucker where he had placed their typical meals from the restaurant.

"Hey guys." He mumbled not looking up from the game he was playing on his PDA. "I got your food a couple minutes ago."

Danny leaned over, putting his lips close to Sam's ear. "Ten bucks."

She turned her head in accordance to him and whispered, "You're on."

"So how was the charity-thing Sam?" Tucker asked, finally putting down his game.

"Horrible. Like always." She said taking a bite of her tofu soy melt.

The next thirty minutes were spent discussing the horrors of rich parties when you had no one fun with you. It was mainly complaints and promises of bringing one or the other next time no matter what their parents said. Throughout their entire conversation Danny and Sam continued to throw glances at each other from the corners of their eyes and even played a bit of footsie, though it was bit odd considering they were sitting right next to the other so they ended up crossing ankles instead and rubbing against the other at times.

"So you missed us that much Sammy?" Tucker asked taking a french-fry and dipping it into his chocolate shake.

"I don't know about your blabber mouth but I was missing my knight in shining armor." Even though she wasn't fond of the whole damsel in distress idea to get a boy, she was starting to take a liking to the saying, considering it did in fact describe Danny incredibly well.

Danny chuckled and looked down at her, locking eyes. "I didn't think you went for all that?"

Sam shrugged, leaned up and kissed her cheek. "When the shoe fits." Danny scoffed and rolled his eyes before giving her a quick squeeze into the side of his body.

"Lovebirds." Tucker muttered loudly as he continued to eat his fries and shake he had gotten a little bit ago.

Danny and Sam shared another quick look before looking at Tucker pointedly without saying a word. It was going to be a close call on who would win the money.

A fry was half way to his mouth with chocolate milkshake still on it when Tucker realized they hadn't replied with their usual 'we're not lovebirds'. He looked closer at them and could see Danny's arm laid across Sam's shoulder, her fingers intertwined with the same hand and they were sitting increasingly close without the usual blushing or nervousness they usually emitted.

His eyes widened almost comically behind his glasses and he slowly put down the French fry that had dripped chocolate on the table. "No way." He whispered and then a lot more loudly, "No way!" a huge grin spread across his face.

Sam and Danny busted out laughing at Tucker's amazement and shock. "All right. Cough it up it took over thirty minutes." Danny held out his hand towards Sam.

She smirked and waggled her index finger at him. "Uh-uh. This is short in Foley terms."

"No way! It took him until dessert."

"You were thinking it was going to be all day."

"So! Thirty minutes is _short_ and _over that_ is long; therefore I win."

"You bet how long it would take me to realize that my two best friends are a couple." Tucker butted in.

"Uh, yeah." They weren't too concerned with Tucker though since they took bets on lots of things all the time.

Tucker threw back his head and laughed loudly earning the attention of some of the people sitting at the nearby tables. "Oh gods that's hilarious! And makes me feel _so_ much better."

"About what?" Danny inquired.

Still smiling Tucker said, "On the two year running bet I made that everyone is a part of, on when you two would get together. And the fact that _I won_!"

"You what!" The smile dropped instantly from Tucker's face as he registered the anger in Sam's voice and on her face.

"Uh…" he looked to Danny for help.

"I don't think so man, Sam has every right to be angry."

"But…" he looked between them both, panic clear on his face.

"I'm pretty sure you have three seconds before she attacks you. I'd take this opportunity to run."

Before Danny finished his sentence Tucker was out of the booth and flying toward the doors of the Nasty Burger.

"Foley!" Sam yelled, hopping out of the booth and began chasing Tucker down who began to scream like a little girl. Danny stayed seated in the booth laughing so hard he had tears coming from his eyes. The trio's antics were pretty normal for the people seated in the Nasty Burger that they only watched for a few seconds before going back to their own business.

When Danny finally caught his breath he picked up their trays with both hands considering he was still wearing his braces and dumped them before making his way down the street. He could just make out Sam and Tucker still running. He was in such a euphoric state that he couldn't even try to be anything more than annoyed at Tucker.

* * *

 **September 20** **th** **, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **Fenton Works: Danny's room**

 **Afternoon**

"I think you permanently bruised me this time, Sam." Tucker whined from Danny's bed as he looked over the bruise forming on his shin from where Sam had gotten in a well placed kick.

Sam rolled her eyes from her position on Danny's lap as he called up Jazz on Skype. He had promised her that he would talk to her this afternoon and was excited to tell her about him and Sam.

"Stop being such a baby, you're fine."

"It's swelling!"

"Put some ice on it." She shrugged, smirking at him as he threw her a glare.

"What did Tucker do this time?" Jazz's face appeared on the screen, the walls of her dorm room visible.

"I told them about the bet." Tucker sighed exasperated.

"What bet?" Jazz's voice rose slightly in pitch and Danny and Sam zeroed in to her.

"You knew?" The said simultaneously.

"No." She tried to feign innocence but couldn't hold up with both Danny and Sam's stares. "Okay, _fine_. I know about it."

"And you didn't tell us?" Danny looked at his sister appalled. He hadn't believed Jazz would go along with something like that.

"Well no Danny." She rolled her eyes. "You don't tell the people who you're having the bet about, about the bet. _Tucker_."

"What?" He looked up from his leg in surprise at Jazz.

"Why did you tell them?"

A smirk slowly formed on his mouth and said confidently, "Because _I won_." He directed his gaze pointedly towards the couple.

Jazz looked at them with an open mouth, "Wait, what?" The trio laughed having never duped Jazz like this before. "Wait, you guys," she pointed her finger at Danny then Sam, "You guys are…together? For real?"

"Clueless one is no longer 'Clueless'." Sam turned her head to the side and kissed Danny on the mouth quickly before looking back at Jazz.

A smile instantly lit Jazz's face and she let out an excited squeal a bit too loud that the trio had to cover their ears. "Oh my gods! You guys I'm so happy! When did this happen, how did this happen, where did this happen? Have you been on a date yet? Tell me everything!"

They chuckled again at Jazz's enthusiasm then Sam began to tell her the story, "Well it technically started last week when Seraphina was controlling everyone's emotions. But we officially got together last night when I…"

"Wait, wait." Jazz interrupted making Sam sigh.

"Jazz if you wanna hear the story you can't interrupt me. Let me get it out and then we can go into the finer details."

"That's not why I wanted you to stop. And I know. Tucker?" She called and he made is way over to the computer, leaning down until he was in the screen.

"Yes?"

She smirked and said, "You didn't win the bet. _I did_."

"What!" Danny and Sam could see his eyes widen in shock. He whipped out his PDA and went to work finding the information he kept for the betting pool. "You're joking."

"Nope. Not joking. I changed my date before I left for school, remember?"

"Yeah, but…"

"I said before the 28th of September."

"My birthday?" Danny questioned looking between the two but neither answered.

"No. I distinctly remember you saying aft…er." He looked up from his PDA still with wide shocked eyes. "No way."

"I changed it to before the 28th while you said 'on' his birthday." Jazz smirked. "So how much do I get?"

Tucker sighed and looked at his PDA forlornly and Jazz had to ask again. "$3,725."

"Wahoo!" Jazz cheered.

"What!" The couple looked at them shocked.

"Oh, I can't wait to come home to collect my money." She did a little spin with her chair before composing herself.

"That much money was bet on _us_ getting together?" Danny couldn't believe how much was in the pot.

"Yeah, but remember it's been going on since May of 2013 when we finished Freshman year and the lowest you were allowed to bet was ten bucks. Almost the whole school has put some in at some point. Only a few of us have kept up with it and that's not including the teachers."

"You never told us the _teachers_ were in on it."

"Heh, whoops. Must have forgot that part earlier."

"So literally everyone was waiting for us to get together."

"Yeah." Jazz and Tucker answered.

"Glad that we could put them at ease." Danny rolled his eyes.

"Anyway…" Sam held out the end of the word, "You wanna hear the story or not, Jazz?"

She smiled again. "Yeah! Yeah, continue."

So Sam continued on with the story keeping the kissing details on the down-low considering Jazz was Danny's sister and all, however Jazz was all excited over what happened and Danny and Sam couldn't keep the blushes off their faces.

"I'm so happy for you guys." Jazz said, "This has been a long time coming. When are you going on your first date?"

"Uh…" Sam looked to Danny who gave her hip a tight squeeze but continued looking at Jazz.

"I've made plans for us tonight."

"You have?" All three questioned. Jazz in excitement, Tucker in slight shock and Sam in great shock, having not expected it so quickly.

"Yes." He smiled at each of them.

"Where?" Sam demanded.

Danny only shook his head, "Nope. It's going to be a surprise."

"But I…"

"Hate surprises. Yes, I know."

They sat in a staring contest for fifteen seconds before Sam conceded. "As long as it's not some fancy restaurant."

Sam almost fell off his lap as Danny began laughing. Sam shared a look with Tucker and Jazz before looking back at Danny with a raised brow. "What's so funny?"

"That you would even think that I would take you up to a place that we both hate." He continued laughing but was interrupted as he began coughing.

Sam quickly got up from his lap hoping it would help him breathe easier. Danny held onto his ribs as he focused on catching his breath. When she was off of him he took a few more seconds to gain his breath back.

"How are your injuries?" Jazz questioned.

"They're almost healed." Sam answered.

"Yeah, Sam gave the okay for the braces to come off." Tucker added.

"Except for the wraps around his chest. His ribs are still tender, but the bruising is gone thankfully.'

"That's good at least. What about the uh… burns?"

"Minimal scaring and he says…"

"The burns are still numb. Haven't changed size or anything." Danny spoke up for himself. "How's your arm?"

"That healing tea really works!" Jazz took off the jacket she was wearing and moved her arm closer to the screen to show them her upper arm, which was now devoid of a hole and a light white scar was the only indicator that something had happened to her. "Sometimes my muscles will lock up a bit but it's back to full use. I went to Target and bought a pair of two pound weights to work my arm when it feels tight."

"Do you need more tea? Medicine or anything?" Danny's worrying tone came through clearly but Jazz only shook her head.

"No. No, I'm fine, really."

"You sure?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, Danny."

"Just making sure." He held up his hands in defense.

Knocking sounded from Jazz's side of the call followed by. "Jazz! You ready to go?

"I'll be right there, Hayden." Jazz called before looking back to the screen. "That's one of my roommates; a few of us were going to head out to see The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

"Oh Damn! I forgot that was playing! I wanted to see that."

"Tucker." Jazz reprimanded for his language.

"Sorry. But I really want to see that movie! It came out a month ago and we still haven't seen it."

"If you really want to we can go today." Danny said.

"Nah," He waved them off, "You guys gotta get prepared for your date. I'll look for times for tomorrow." Danny, Jazz and Sam shared a look as Tucker pulled out his PDA to look up times for the movie.

"Okay then, I'll talk to you guys later."

"Bye, Jazz!" They chorused and the siblings ended their call.

"So what time are we going on this date?" Sam inquired moving to sit on Danny's bed.

"I was thinking of picking you up around six." He smiled at her waiting for…

"To pick _me_ up? Why can't I pick _you_ up?"

That. Waiting for that. "Because it's going to be a surprise and plus I already asked Maddie if I could take the car tonight and she gave me the all clear."

"But you got to pick me up today." She pointed out.

"But this is our first date. The guy always picks up the girl on the first date. Plus, you don't know where we're going." He smirked at her.

Sam quickly got up from his bed, stopped just in front of him, placed both hands on the arms rests and leaned in close to his face locking eyes with him. "Tell me."

"Not going to happen."

She leaned in a little closer, their noses almost touching. "And why not?" her voice lowered to a whisper.

"Because it will ruin the surprise."

"You know that I don't like surprises."

Danny's hands came up to wrap around her waist, "Trust me you'll like this one."

They were interrupted as Tucker snorted loudly. They turned to look at him to see him still focused on his PDA. He looked up a few seconds later when he realized they'd stopped talking. "Sorry but," He chuckled once, "You guys are just kind of adorable."

"Adorable!" Sam exclaimed and Danny began to chuckle to himself. "I'm not done with you."

"I'm pretty sure you are though."

"Oh, contraire."

"You're not getting anything out of me."

"Yeah, except for…"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence, Foley." Sam glared and pointed a finger at him before turning back to Danny. "Okay listen here, you can pick me up but I'm paying for whatever or wherever we're going or doing."

"How do you know I haven't _already_ paid?"

"Because you haven't."

"How do you know?" He arched a brow.

"Because I just do."

"Half."

"No way."

"Oh my god!" Tucker exclaimed yet again causing them to look at him, "Sam just pay half! You guys argue more like an old married couple than you did before!"

"We argued like an old married couple?"

"Yes. And it's gonna get worse. I just see it."

* * *

 **September 20** **th** **, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **Manson Mansion**

 **5:56 p.m.**

Danny pulled up to Sam's a few minutes early, the butterflies he felt earlier this morning were flying around again. First dates could make or break a relationship and he wanted everything to go perfectly. He made sure that Tucker was watching the portal and would be on duty until 12 o'clock. Then anything else Danny or other ghost hunters could handle. But right now he wasn't focused on that. He was focused on his and Sam's first date. He couldn't believe that it was actually happening.

He was currently standing outside her front door having just knocked and was praying it was her grandma or herself that opened the door. Apparently he wasn't so lucky. The door opened not only to reveal Sam's father, but her mother as well. Both wore hard, stern faces as they looked at him.

"Uh, hi." He smiled nervously, "I'm here to pick up Sam."

"Yes, we know." Jeremy drawled. "She's coming down."

"Samantha is to be home by eleven o'clock and no later. No talking of those ghostly things and driving must be kept to a normal speed." Pamela practically growled at him.

Danny decided it would be best to play nice considering they were actually letting him take Sam on a date. "Yes, ma'am."

"Mom! Stop scaring him." Sam said and she appeared next to her mother in the doorway. "Hi, Danny."

"Hi." He breathed out.

It felt as though he had broken his ribs again because he was having trouble breathing. He had seen her in a million and one outfits from ballroom gowns to grungy shorts and a T-Shirt. She looked beautiful in all of them but he's never seen her look more gorgeous right now. She wore her usual combat boots with black tight jeans tucked inside them, an oversized deep purple sweater with a grey scarf underneath her black Peacoat. He could see that she was wearing her typical make-up but her hair was down from the typical ponytail. It came down straight and sleek, ending just past her chest.

"You ready to go?"

"Uh, I uh… yeah."

Sam let out a breathy laugh through her nose before walking through the doorway and grabbing his hand. "Let's go bumbly." She turned and waved to her parents. "Bye mom, dad." Then pulled Danny down the front steps and to the car.

Danny shook himself out of his stupor quick enough to beat her to the car door an open it for her.

"Are you going to help me in too?" She smiled up at him letting him know that she appreciated his chivalry.

"I wouldn't wanna step on your independence." He joked before he shut the door and made his way to the driver's side.

"So are you going to tell me where we're going, _now_?"

"Nope." He said happily and pulled out of her driveway.

"Oh come on. Really?"

"Yes, really!"

"Not even a hint?"

He pursed his lips and thought for a few seconds. "Okay, one hint."

"But…"

He threw her a quick glance before looking back to the road. "It's one or nothing."

She huffed in annoyance and crossed her arms over her chest, "Fine."

"We're going to three different places."

"What! That's not a hint!"

"Yes it is!"

"Well not a very good one!"

"I never said I would give you a _good_ hint."

"I hate you."

He smirked, "No you don't."

There was silence in the car for a few seconds before Sam said, "Okay, that's true. I don't hate you." She paused and took a quick look at him.

He was paying attention to the road and Sam was struck with how handsome he looked. She always thought he looked good but seeing him all done up and dressed in dark jeans and a light blue sweater let her appreciate him in a different way than his skin tight jumpsuit did. He had even fixed is normally unruly hair into a cleaner version of a casual hairstyle. The longer hair was pushed forward and styled in a position with a bit of hair gel that Sam assumed he took from Jazz's room since he didn't own any. She noticed how sharp his jaw was and the straightness of his nose and the way his lips were pulling up at the side as he smiled and his eyes seemed to sparkle as the setting sun hit their faces.

"You clean up good. Did anyone ever tell you that?"

He laughed loudly, "I think you've said that each time you've seen me in a suit." They pulled up to a red light and turned his full focus to her. "You're looking pretty good yourself."

"Well, just because my mom wants me to dress up in pretty bright dresses doesn't mean I don't know how to dress nice."

"I'm not saying you didn't. But you do look very nice."

She smirked and breathed a laugh through her nose. "I know Mr. Uh-um-y-ye-ah." Then laughed when he blushed from his neck to his ears. "But thank you." She reached over and touched his hand that was resting on the gear shift.

A loud honk from the car behind him jerked them both back to reality. Danny threaded his fingers through Sam's and continued towards their destination. They drove for another ten minutes before Danny parked the car in a parking lot that was for anyone who would be walking through the busy street of shops, bars and restaurants.

"Are we going where I think we're going?" Sam asked as they walked down the bustling sidewalk, holding hands.

"I don't know. Where is it that you think we're going?" A sign lit up as they walked closer and closer to it labeled 'South City Diner'.

"There! Man, we haven't come here in a long time. We love this restaurant."

"I know." Danny smiled down at her, "Figured it would be a good place to start." Sam answered him with a smile and they continued on into the 50s style restaurant.

The place was hopping with people, waitresses wore poodle skirts and pink sweaters while waiters wore jeans, white shirts and black pleather jackets. Sam and Danny were seated in the back in one of the two seater booths that were left.

"Remember the last time we came here and Tucker got a whole pie and…"

"…and ate the whole thing and the waitress came back mortified." They both were laughing as they picked up the menus the waitress had given them.

"I wonder if she still works here? Do you remember her name?"

"Nope. I guess we'll have to ask around."

"I bet he's famous with them." Sam chuckled and focused on her menu.

The waitress came back and they ordered their drinks and meals at the same time. Once she was gone Danny and Sam were left in silence. They weren't sure if it was awkward or not because they were used to being alone in each other's company but this was new territory for them.

"Is it supposed to be this hard?" Sam questioned after a few minutes of silence.

"I mean it shouldn't be. We're still us, right?" Danny threw up his hands in frustration.

"Right. We've been best friends forever, so that means we know exactly how to talk to each other."

"Maybe we should start basic? You know normal date conversation or something. Like 20 questions."

"But we already know everything about each other."

"Do you have any other ideas?" he arched a brow at her.

"Okay, fine." She sighed. "I'll go first. What is your favorite color? Though I already know you're going to say…"

"Purple."

She looked at him startled. "Purple? What happened to blue?"

"See? I told you this was a good idea." He smirked at her. She threw him a quick glare and he chuckled before reaching across the table and laid his hand palm up. Sam reached out as well and placed her hand in his. "Okay, so this is going to sound really, really cheesy."

"I think I can handle cheesy."

"Okay, well it was back in Freshman year and before I liked blue just because it was a calming color but I started liking purple because, well," he reached up with his other hand to rub the back of his neck, "because of… of your eyes."

"Really?" Danny nodded, "I mean I always thought my eyes were cool, but I think this makes them even better."

"Okay, okay." He chuckled and tried to control the rising blush. "What's _your_ favorite color?"

"Okay, you can't laugh, though." She pointed a finger at him.

"Who me?"

"Promise."

"I promise. I promise."

"Alright," She let out a quick breath. "So I still love purple and all that, but now, well it's blue. Like your eyes."

"Wow." Danny said shaking his head. "We're really, really, _really_ cheesy."

"And we haven't even gotten to any other questions yet!" Sam chuckled.

"Is this normal?"

Sam shrugged, "I have no idea. It's probably just us."

"Probably." Danny chuckled. The waitress came over at this point and placed their drinks on the table asked them if they were doing okay before moving on to the next table.

"Okay, so I kind of like these questions. You're turn to ask."

"Hmm," he pursed his lips and tapped his chin with his index finger. "What's your favorite food right now?"

"Right now?" Danny nodded. "Okay, um, well I guess this creamy mushroom and broccoli pasta that I've been wanting to eat since I made it a few weeks ago. I keep making it for lunch. I mean it's just so good!"

"Yeah, I've noticed." He chuckled.

"What's yours?"

"Chicken and dumplings."

"That hasn't changed since you were ten."

"True. But it's still my favorite. Hey!" He exclaimed eyes lighting up. "Remember when we were twelve and Tucker dared you to eat a chicken tender?"

"Which you were totally in on."

"Not gonna deny it." He raised his other hand in surrender.

"Ugh." She shuddered and stuck out her tongue in disgust of the memory. "I was brushing my teeth four times a day for two weeks to get rid of the taste of that poor chicken."

"I still think two weeks was a long time."

"You didn't have to eat something you were completely against eating."

"Well maybe not to your extent but if I remember correctly you and Tucker dared me to eat eggplant. And I despise eggplant."

Sam threw back her head and laughed loudly causing a few people to look over at them curiously. "Sam! It's not funny!"

"Oh gods, you were such a little wimp about it." She laughed again. "You took huge gulps of water after each bite."

"It was gross." He pouted, "Stupid eggplant."

"Okay, okay." Sam tried to be serious but the large smile wouldn't leave her face, "Next question, what's your opinion of me getting another tattoo?"

"You mean besides the one on your ankle with my symbol and the number 3?"

"Yes."

His brows furrowed and asked, "Where are you going to put this one?"

"At the nape of my neck."

"And what are you going to get?"

"I don't know yet. Which is why I wanted your help. I can't decide between either getting the number six and the ghost word for Family, RerFyilim, or a vine wrapped into a blood blossom."

"Those are kind of tough to choose between."

"Yeah, mainly because I'm not sure which one I want to put on the nape of my neck and the other one just under my boob."

His eyes widened, "Wouldn't that hurt?"

"Not any more than the one on my ankle."

"Oh. Well if I had to choose, I think I would put the 'six and family' on my neck, but I would put the vine and blood blossoms down the side of my rib cage."

"Hm, yeah I was thinking of having it wrap from under my breast and end under my arm."

"That sounds cool, I think you should do that. Can I ask you something about it though?"

"Sure." She nodded.

"What's the six stand for?"

"Well I consider there to be six people that are a part of my family including myself. You, Tucker, my grandma, Dani and Jazz."

"You consider Jazz to be part of your family now? I hadn't realized you guys had gotten so close."

Sam smiled, "We really have. I never realized I would like having a friend who was a girl so much."

"You know that's going to make Jazz really happy when you tell her."

They both shared a smile, "I know."

"I have a country friend steak, here." The waitress seemed to have appeared out of thin air, startling the couple. She placed the plate down in front of Danny. "And a Roasted Vegetable sandwich." She placed the other plate in front of Sam. "Can I get you guys anything else?"

"No, we're fine, thank you." Sam answered and the waitress left them to their dinner.

The rest of dinner was spent in great ease and Sam and Danny felt the pressure of the first date lessen. It had slowly dawned on them that just because they were on a date didn't mean that they had to act any differently. They could still speak on the same subjects, laugh at the same thing. The only thing that really changed was the way in which they expressed their feelings. There were touches of hands or to the forearm. Their feet ended up intertwined after a short instance of footsie.

After dinner they were walking on the sidewalk, now lit up with street lamps and lights from stores and restaurants and bars. Sam began to head left however Danny pulled her in the other direction.

"But the car is this way." She protested.

"But where we're going next is this way."

"But we already ate and we're not old enough to get into bars. Where could we be going?"

"You'll see."

"You should just be happy I stuck by my stupid promise."

"But it was a good surprise and I promise that this one will be too. Or at least I hope."

"You hope?" She inquired.

"You'll…"

"See. Yeah, yeah." She waved him off.

It took them a few minutes to get to their destination and Sam was surprised to find themselves standing outside a comedy club.

"Don't we have to be 21 though?"

"Maybe. If not it won't be a big deal." He flashed her his ghostly eyes and then a smile after they were gone.

"And who taught you it was okay to sneak into places with those powers of yours?" She asked and wrapped her arms around his neck, his own came to rest on her hips.

"I don't know." He shrugged but kept solid eye contact with her. "Some dark haired goth girl who runs around chasing ghosts and has a wonderful bedside manner when the need arises." They leaned in slowly, foreheads almost touching.

"She sounds like a badass." She whispered, her lips almost brushing his.

"A gorgeous badass." He whispered back. Sam moved up on her toes slightly and Danny leaned down to connect their lips in a slow, yet heated kiss.

When they pulled away for air, lips barely a centimeter a part, foreheads touching, Danny was the first to speak. "So what do you think of skipping the comedic act and making out in the car instead?"

"I'd say that we can" she held out the word 'can' before continuing, "Do that later after the show." She pulled fully away from him.

He chuckled, "Okay. But after this we have one more stop to make."

"Right." She nodded eyeing him warily. "I'm gonna try and figure this one out before we get there this time."

"You won't be able to figure it out." He shook his head.

"Are you doubting my skills of perception?" She asked and took his hand and began pulling him towards the line forming at the front doors.

"No. Not at all." He shook his head again. "Just saying that it's someplace you won't be expecting."

"I'm still going to try and figure it out."

"You do that. Are you ready to watch the famous comedic, Jolene Hallise?"

"Yeah, I've seen a few of her videos and she's pretty hilarious."

They thankfully were able to get in and Danny didn't have to resort to transforming to get in. But since they weren't 21 they had to have a stamp of the club's name put on their hand so they couldn't order any alcohol. They found a table on the side and sort of in the back since the show was about to start. A waitress came by and they decided to order a piece of the vegan Chilled Double Chocolate Torte for dessert. The stand-up comic was great and had the entire place roaring with laughter including Danny and Sam. The show lasted two hours ending around ten o'clock giving Danny and Sam enough time to make it back to her house.

Danny had pulled up to her street when Sam questioned him about the third place he was supposed to take her to.

"Did you change your mind? Terrified I'd guess it?"

"Well did you?" he asked as he parked in her driveway.

"If we're not going to the third place, then why should I try to guess?" She asked. They both opened their doors and began walking up to her front door.

"I never said we weren't going to place number three."

"So it's a room in my house?" She looked at him quizzically.

"Nope." He smiled, gloatingly.

"My backyard?"

"Nope."

"My greenhouse?"

"And three strikes, you're out!" He called then laughed when she threw him a glare and hit him on the shoulder just as they came to a stop on her front porch. "Ow! Okay, okay. I'll tell you where we're going."

"Finally!" She exclaimed throwing her arms in the air before crossing them over her chest and threw him an exasperated look.

"I'll meet you in your room in fifteen minutes." He leaned down and kissed her before running to the car leaving Sam standing on her porch, mouth agape and eyes furrowed in confusion.

"Danny!" She shouted as she registered what just happened.

"See ya!" he laughed and got into the car, backed out of the driveway and drove down her street.

She growled out in frustration and shook her head before opening her door and marching in to the house.

"Did you have a good time, dear?"

"Mom!" Sam jumped at the sound of her mother's voice and turned to see her sitting in the front room a book in her lap.

Pamela stood from the silk chair she was occupying and made her way towards Sam who was surprised to see her in her pajamas already. "You're back before eleven." She noted.

Sam rolled her eyes. "Danny wants to be on your good sides." She turned away from her mother and began the climb up the stairs to the second floor.

"Well, being punctual is a start." Sam could hear her mother's foot falls behind her. "Where did you go?"

"To the South City Diner and then to a comedy club."

"A comedy club!" She screeched.

Sam sighed and threw up her left hand to show her mother the stamp she received. "They stamped us mom, so we didn't drink any alcohol if that's what you're worried about."

"Oh. But still, no self-respecting young lady should resort herself to such crude humor made by stand-up comics."

"Well I guess I'm not 'self-respecting'" Sam chuckled and rolled her eyes.

" _Samantha_."

"Mom!" Sam walked through her bedroom door and proceeded to set down her purse and take off her coat. "I had a fun time tonight, can you please not try and spoil it."

There were a few seconds of silence as Pamela stood in Sam's doorway and she herself plugged in her phone, took off her shoes and scarf and pulled out a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt to make her mother believe she was getting ready for bed.

"You know I'm not happy about you two dating, Samantha."

"I know. But Danny's not like his parents mom." She finally turned to face her daughter.

"I know that."

"Then why do you treat him the same?"

"Because even though that boy is his own person, he was still raised by those lunatics and I will not have my daughter dating one of them."

"It's not exactly up to you who I can and cannot see." She folded her arms across her chest and turned a glare on to her mother.

Pamela let out a sigh, "I'm glad that you two had fun dear. But don't believe for one second that this is going to last. You'll see, there's someone better out there for you."

She rolled her eyes, "I really doubt that."

"You're only seventeen, Samantha. You have yet to experience the wonders of life."

"You and dad were married at eighteen."

Pamela waved her off, "Because we were a good fine match. You and Danny are not."

"You have no idea what you're talking about." Sam growled.

Her mother only let out a long sigh, "I see that there is no changing your mind at the moment. But Samantha dear, don't let this boy go to your head. Good night." She waved and then proceeded to shut her door.

"Too late." She mumbled under her breath now alone.

Sam decided it was best not to change clothes considering she had no clue on where Danny was going to take her. She pulled her boots back on and sat down at her desk where she pulled out her sketch book. But after trying to focus on finishing her drawing from earlier and then trying to create a new drawing she couldn't stay focused. Her mind kept going back to everything that had happened earlier. To every touch, every look, every kiss. The way they had finally settled into themselves again after realizing that there didn't need to be such a big change in their interactions. She couldn't keep the smile off her face.

"Hey."

"Ah!" Sam yelped in surprise for the second time that day. "You have got to stop doing that." She twirled around in her chair and pointed a finger at the floating form of Danny Phantom.

"Sorry." He laughed. Though he wasn't really sorry about it at all. "I figured you had felt me come in."

A light pink coated Sam's cheeks as she rose from her chair. "I was a bit lost in thought."

Danny smirked and held a hand up to his chest, "About moi?"

She rolled her eyes, "You wish."

He chuckled once and reached out a hand for her to take. "Have you figured out where the third place is yet?"

Sam grabbed her phone off her charger, turned off her bedroom light and intertwined her fingers with his. "Sadly no." her lips pulled tight to one side of her mouth. "Give me another hint. A good one."

Danny turned them invisible and flew them from her bedroom window and down the street that was lit with orange street lamps. "A good one?"

"Yes." Sam nodded the best she could. "Because the last one sucked."

"You've been there before."

"I have?"

"Yep." Danny began to make his descent to the street. Sam could see Maddie's car sitting on one of the side streets. Once they were in the car Danny quickly changed back and started the engine.

"So we're not flying there?"

"Well, we could. But I think driving would be more advantageous."

"Ooh, look who studied up on his vocabulary."

"Eh," He shrugged but was still smiling, "I try."

"So what did you do for fifteen minutes?"

"Checked on Tucker. Said things were normal but he was handling it fairly well. He had to hide a few times from the GIW but so far everything has been going good." He chuckled with a dark undertone, "Well, as good as things go for us."

"True. Did he see Valerie?"

"A few times. She took care of some of the bigger ghosts when Tucker was preoccupied."

Danny jumped on the highway 74 heading toward Indianapolis making Sam confused on where he was going to take her.

"While you were having a nice chat with Tucker, I had a wonderful chat with mother."

"Really?" She could see Danny's face light up in shock from the lights on the dashboard.

"No. It was _murderous_. Told me that there were other fish in the sea and that I didn't know what I was doing. Also said that any self-respecting young woman wouldn't enjoy such crude humor of today's comics. Her words not mine."

"That's crap. You're the most self-respecting woman I know." Danny scoffed.

"Exactly! But of course I mouthed off and said 'then I guess I'm not self-respecting' and made my way up to my room. But of course she followed me. Then proceeded to tell me that she did not like that we were dating and didn't want us to be together. But I informed her that she wasn't in charge of my love life. She's waiting for me to see that you're bad for me or something and run towards someone she'd more approve of."

Danny opened his mouth to put in his opinion of their conversation, but Sam was on a roll and kept going.

"Which is ridiculous! I don't need her to approve of anyone. I'm my own person and she never cares about anything that is important to me unless it ruins her image. And I'm not even trying to do that anymore. This is who I am, who I like to be which goes double for my dating life. She has no right to say that I'm too young to understand or that I don't know what's out there. Just because I'm young doesn't mean I haven't gone through some tough shit or know what we have is real. And what else is out there? Why would I want to look for someone else, when I have my best friend? She just can't understand because she doesn't love my father like I love you and…" She stopped suddenly and looked over to Danny with wide eyes.

His brows furrowed and quickly glanced over to her too see her wide eyes filled with a hint of fear. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

She gulped, "Um, I kind of just registered what was spilling from my mouth and we're kind of still on our first date."

Danny knew that Sam was probably right in the fact that she should stop talking because she was right _; they were on their first date_. But even though he could feel the heat in his cheeks from Sam's words on how much she loved him, he knew that he wouldn't have it any other way because he felt the words she was saying down in his soul. Yes, they were on their first date, but he knew, she knew, that they had been together for much longer than what they truly had realized. They had already connected their souls and now it was a matter of the physical side of their relationship coming to fruition. Something that he knew Sam was already conscious of.

"You're good Sam. I don't mind, promise."

She let out a shaky yet relieved breath. She knew that they had gotten comfortable throughout this evening on the subject of them being together and the love they felt down to their souls. But he was still Danny and she didn't want to overstep when their relationship just started. Just because she was okay talking about marriage and all that – not that she was ready for it, but she didn't go running for the hills – didn't mean that Danny was. He may be a hero and mentally older than other guys his age, but he was still a guy.

"Anyway, she seems like she's going to leave us alone for now, but I don't doubt her one minute that she has something up her sleeve."

"Doesn't she always?"

"I guess you're not wrong on that account. I'm going to have to keep my eye out for anything suspicious from her."

"Do you think she'll get a restraining order on me?" He let a bit of his nervousness slide through his words.

"Not unless she wants me to ruin her reputation. I have too much dirt on her to keep her respectable in society if she went against us."

"I'm so happy I'm on your good side." He chuckled and Sam did as well.

"If it wasn't for me, you and Tucker would have no backbones and would probably be stuck in your rooms playing video games 24/7."

"I wouldn't go that far."

She smirked, "Whatever you think ghost boy." A green sign with two towns listed passed them on the road they were on and Sam finally knew where they were going. "The field!" She exclaimed excitedly, turning her whole body to look at Danny. "We're going to the field!"

Danny smiled and turned to look at her quickly, giving her a nod before looking back to the empty road. "Yep."

But her excitement was short lived as she tried to figure out the reason. "Why?"

Danny chuckled breathily through his nose, "You'll see."

"Danny!" She sighed and glared at him.

"What?" She could hear the smirk in his voice.

She glared him down for a half a minute before saying, "I'm not talking to you for the rest of the ride." She reached over to the stereo and turned it to her favorite rock station, turning the volume up loud, but thankfully not ear-drum splitting level.

"You're joking."

When she didn't answer he sighed and focused his attention on the road. Sometimes he hated how dramatic she could get but he couldn't really criticize her considering he was known to be dramatic as well.

The next ten minutes were spent in speaking silence; the only sound being the hard rock station Sam had chosen and was trying her best to not sing along to the songs. Danny pulled off onto a dirt road and then into an empty field that was surrounded by trees on three sides. The field they were at was where they typically went to train now-a-days. It was quiet and the nearest town was ten minutes away. They never had any trouble with anyone and it was best for training Danny's tougher powers such as his: ghostly wail, ice and larger ectoplasmic balls. They had been coming to the field since the middle of last year but they hadn't had a chance to come back since the new school year started.

Danny parked the car at the edge of the empty field of grass, he turned off the car, but left the lights on for the time being so Sam could see better in the dark. Being a ghost he had a beneficial sense of vague night vision but he needed the light almost as much as Sam.

Sam got out of the car and to the truck with him when he opened it. He reached in and pulled out three blankets, a portable speaker with an aux cord, bug spray and a basket. He handed her the basket and bug spray before closing the trunk and made his way to the front of the car and set his items down on the hood. He grabbed one blanket and laid it out on the grass, set the speaker on the edge of the blanket before pulling out his phone and hooked it up to the aux chord and began playing old slow jazz music that they both loved.

"We're going to watch the stars?" Sam couldn't help the smile – again – as it spread across her face when Danny turned to her.

"Yeah." He nodded as she stepped closer to him. "You like it?" his voice lowered to barely above a whisper.

"I love it." She whispered back. She placed the items she held on the ground, walked the last few feet to Danny and reached up to pull him down to her level as she also rose on her toes to kiss him. It wasn't long, but she tried to show him how much she appreciated what he had done. Not just this, but the entire night. "Thank you for my surprises." She whispered against his lips.

"I told you, you would love them." He whispered back and pressed his lips against hers again before pulling away. "Come on, let's get this stuff set up." He pulled his arms away from her that and risen to wrap around her when they were kissing and grabbed the basket and two other blankets from the hood of the car.

"What's in the basket?"

"Hot chocolate, and before you ask, Tucker made sure to make it your way."

"So it wasn't just to check in was it?" Sam smirked as she grabbed the bug spray and sprayed herself down then passed it to Danny who followed suit.

"Well, I did check in with him, but I needed the hot chocolate too." He moved towards the car, opening the drives' side door, and tossed in the bug spray. "You ready for me to turn off the lights?"

"Yeah, go ahead." Sam said and turned the flashlight of her phone on as Danny turned off the lights of the car.

He made his way back over to the blanket and sat down beside her. She poured them a cup of hot chocolate and set the thermos back in the basket. Danny grabbed a second blanket and brought it around to wrap around the shoulders as Sam held their cup and then turned off her phone light.

They didn't speak as they sat their watching the stars twinkle above them. Some were obscured by clouds but that didn't deter them in their gazing of the lights. They sat shoulder to shoulder, leg to leg wrapped up in the blanket taking turns drinking from the mug. The cool jazz music helped calm them both from a hectic day; setting them in a sense of tranquility that they never wished to escape from.

They refilled their cup three times before they were too full to continue to drink the warm beverage and put the cup back in the basket. At this time Danny grabbed the third blanket and folded it into a pillow for them to lay their heads on. Danny laid on his back, and wrapped an arm around Sam. She forwent the make-shift pillow and laid her head on Danny's chest. After laying the blanket over top them, they intertwined their hands on Danny's chest under the blanket.

"Thank you." Sam whispered feeling the need to not break the silence of the night.

"Of course." Danny whispered back not wanting to speak louder than seemed appropriate.

"You didn't have to do all of this."

"No, I didn't have to. But I wanted to." His hand that was wrapped around her came up and began to play with the ends of her hair.

"I feel as though I'm in a dream and any moment I'm going to wake up."

"Me too." He leaned forward a bit and kissed the top of her head. "But it's amazing to realize that we're actually here in this moment."

"I'll say." She sighed. "How did you come up with our date?"

"Google." He answered honestly and Sam chuckled lightly.

"Oh yeah? What did google say?"

"Well, I read that it's best to go somewhere that we both were comfortable with and I knew that going to South City Diner would be best. But then I also ready that on first dates, especially with going from best friends to being boyfriend and girlfriend it's best to try something new and to not just stick with dinner. So I looked up unique first date ideas and I really liked the comedy club idea."

"And this part?" She asked when he didn't continue right away.

"I actually had this part planned from the beginning."

"You did?"

"Yep. I almost just stuck with coming out here and not adding in the dinner or the show."

"I would have been happy with doing just this too."

"I know." She could hear him smiling. "But I liked how our night went."

"Me too. I think that, well… that we've made a good start."

"We were a bit rocky at the beginning though." Danny chuckled lightly.

Sam did as well, "True. But now we know how to approach this better."

Danny shook his head as he laid there and closed his eyes, "I still can't believe how stupid we were. I mean it took us years to get together."

"Not like we haven't exactly been acting like we've been together for this past year or so."

"True." He conceded. "But you know what I mean."

She turned her head to look at him and found that his eyes were open again and staring at her. She leaned up on her elbow that was squished between them and kissed him on the lips. "Yeah." She sighed against his mouth. "Yeah, I know _exactly_ what you mean."

Danny used his hand that had been twined into her hair, and was now making its way down her back, to pull her closer to him where she was now lying half on top of him. He moved his lips against hers, sending shivers down through Sam's body. Their fingers stayed intertwined as they continued to kiss, Sam moved her leg in between Danny's, his hand was pressed into her lower back. He opened his mouth and his warm breath spilled across her and their kiss became more heated as Danny's tongue slide across her lower lip asking for entrance, which she obliged. They got lost in the other as their limbs tangled, breaths mixed and they pressed into each other. They were drowning and neither wanted to be saved.

Danny rolled them over; making sure that Sam's head was on the make-shift blanket pillow. When they were settled, Sam let go of Danny's hand and reached for the hem of his shirt with both of her hands and pulled it over his head. She ran her hands down his chest, noticing that he had ditched the wrap for his ribs, but decided to focus on that later. She barely noticed the scars and burns that littered his body because she was so used to seeing them that seeing them in this state didn't deter her in her exploration. She felt him shudder as she ran her fingers slowly over his abs and he moved to kiss down her neck. She titled her head to the side to give him better access. Just above her collarbone he stopped and bit her gently, she sucked in a breath and her fingers unintentionally scratched him lightly, causing him to hiss.

"Sorry." She panted.

"It felt good." He whispered like a prayer into her neck and then continued his work as Sam moved her hands to feel his toned body, going over the scars and burns knowing where they would be automatically.

"I'm going to have to wear a scarf tomorrow aren't I?" She groaned, but not in annoyance.

Danny chuckled and she shuddered as his hot breath washed over her sensitive skin. She reached up with one of her hands to pull him back to her mouth because she couldn't stand not kissing him anymore. Her tongue tangled with his and kept her hand tangled in his hair. One of Danny's cool hands traveled underneath Sam's sweater, resting on her stomach, thumb brushing across her abdomen. But he didn't move his hand any further up, no matter how much Sam was begging him to in her mind. Rather it traveled to her hip and squeezed tight as they kissed each other avidly.

Eventually they slowed their kissing down and found themselves laying on their sides, foreheads resting against the other, noses crossed, lips a breath away, eyes staring into the other through the darkness.

"I love you." Danny whispered against her lips.

"I love you, too." She whispered back, kissed him lightly and pulled away before they could get carried away again.

Sam closed her eyes and moved to snuggle closer to Danny, even though the space between them was nonexistent.

' _God she's beautiful.'_

"Hmm?" Sam pulled her head away from where she had tucked it under Danny's chin, to look at him. "What did you say?"

"I didn't say anything."

"Oh," She wondered what she heard but figured it must have been the music. "Okay, probably the music."

She listened to his heartbeat as she laid there. She had always thought it strange that women would talk about listening to their partner's heartbeats and how comforting it was. But being where she was now and being open with Danny, she could see what those women meant. She was almost lulled into sleep when Danny said so low that she could barely make it out,

' _I could stay here forever.'_

She lifted her head again and looked at him, "Did you say something?"

He opened his eyes, confusion evident in them, "No. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah I'm fine." She frowned but laid her head back down. This time she kept watch on his face when he closed his eyes again. She could just make out his features in the moonlight through the clouds; she knew he was saying something, but she could barely hear what he was saying.

A minute or so passed when she heard,

' _We should probably go home. Don't want her getting in trouble.'_

Her eyes widened and mouth popped open, but kept her gasp of shock in her lungs not wanting to alert Danny. This couldn't be happening. She thought that they had gotten rid of it. They _had_ gotten rid of it. But there was no mistaking,

She had heard him in her head.

 **September 21** **st** **, 2014**

 **Sunday**

 **The Field**

 **12:05 a.m.**

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What! Oh my gods, no way! Hahahahaha bet you weren't expecting that! :)

Please Review! I would like **7 reviews** again. I hope you all loved this chapter! I had so much fun writing it!

So the diner is a place that I love and I go to sometimes by my house at home. The comedy club is taken from the comedy club that I've been to when I'm away at University and I pulled the dessert they eat from their menu. I made up the Comic's name. But she's really famous in this world lol. And I really really really wanted them to go lay out under the stars so I just added them all together! Lol

Hope you guys liked it and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 *****Review** **Replies** **:**

 **ShadowDragon357:** Oh yeah that protectiveness that Sam has is something I love about her! Totally my headcanon too. Those are her boys! Of course she's going to be protective :) I've always thought that all three of them are incredibly protective of the other because that's just the nature of their friendship. So happy that you liked the last chapter. Hoped you liked their first date!

 **CaptainDorito:** I just want to thank you so much for your review again! I do the same thing when reading other stories. And yes! The little details are so important to me too. It's what draws people in, you know? I try to make sure I always get in those little details. And thanks for telling me that Sam's reason for not backing off of Danny was clear. I was a little worried that it wasn't as clear as what I was thinking, but you confirmed it was clear, so thank you :) What did you think of Tucker's and Jazz's reactions? Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR! lol

 **SamXDanny:** I'm so happy that you loved the last chapter! After reading your review I couldn't stop smiling for an hour! Lol and a DP hoodie? I want one! Maybe I'll ask for one for my birthday. I keep forgetting to put it on my list until it's too late. Hahaha, well amnesia for them won't happen again. Or at least as far as I know up to chapter 30. Little inside information for you :) Happy New Year!

 **Arrowkid21:** I know I'm so evil *Evil laughter* *choking* *I'm good* lol. The story might not be as long now that I've thought a bit about it more. Since I'm making the chapters a bit long this first story will probably be 70 chapters now. That is unless I decided to keep everything in one story. I probably need to figure that stuff out soon. Lol So happy that you're liking everything so far! I hope you liked this new chapter.

 **Capitolblonde:** Wow! What a response! You practically reviewed every chapter. Thank you so much! And of course you can stalk my story! I love that, as long as you don't go crazy. Then we have to stop lol. So happy that you love my story so much and I can't wait to see what you write about this chapter. Thank you so much for your kind words and support.


	18. Minds, Bets & Titles

Hey guys! Wow! I loved the response that the last chapter got! I'm so happy that so many of you loved their date!

Just to let you know this chapter will finish out their date and have some funny things about what happens during school. But further down there will be important background information!

Thank you so much to all of my reviewers! **Arrowkid21, Blue11msu, ShinyMudkipGal, SamXDanny, snoopykid, Danny Phantom Overlord, ShadowDragon357, Great, CaptainDorito, rylenosha, Savirox, Rocky Rooster, FandomsAndBandMemes,** and **Capitolblonde!**

 ******* Answers to Reviewers at bottom: **Blue11msu, ShinyMudipGal, SamXDanny, Great, CaptainDorito, ShadowDragon357, Rocky Rooster, Savirox**

I hope you all like this chapter! Lots of info! I hope to see a minimum of **7 reviews** again. **All of your reviews made my day whenever I read them! They always make me smile :)**

Disclaimer: I sadly don't own Danny Phantom because if I did Phantom Planet would be what I'm writing right now! Lol. Also do not own the lyrics to the song 'The End of All Things' by Panic! At the Disco.

* * *

 **In these coming years**

 **Many things will change**

 **But the way I feel**

 **Will remain the same**

 **Lay us down**

 **We are in love**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Minds, Bets & Titles**

 **Word count: 7,572**

 **1/10/16**

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 **September 21** **st** **, 2014**

 **Sunday**

 **The Field**

 **12:05 a.m.**

Sam couldn't relax no matter how much she wanted to. Her mind was running a million miles a minute and she couldn't let Danny know. She couldn't believe that she had heard him in her head. She thought that their link wouldn't come back because they had buried it so far in their minds that they couldn't get to it.

But she knew it was back because she could hear snippets of his thoughts and now his feelings were flooding her own and it felt as though she was a river overflowing, but instead of water, she was carrying the love they felt for the other and happiness and being content where they were and a sense of freedom. Everything he was feeling flowed into her and she had no idea if his side of the link was reestablished or not and she couldn't ask him.

They were all six years old when their link was established. Maddie and Jack had brought them downstairs one day when Sam was over – Tucker hadn't been able to come over that day – to show them the work on an old version of the Ghost Gabber, the process on making the Portal and an older version of something they were working on now that helped keep ghosts from stealing human's emotions. Neither Sam nor Danny quite remembered how it had happened. But one minute they were looking at the Ghost Gabber and next visible green, red, blue and purple wavelengths were emitting from that device and the other device, which was turned on, and they had been caught in the crossfire.

Maddie and Jack had shut them off, but the wavelengths continued their connection wrapping around both of them. Sam remembered watching the colors pass between her and Danny's body's everywhere and being entranced by the beautiful colors. And then they were gone again just as quickly. The devices instantly short-circuited as soon as the wavelengths were gone, but Maddie and Jack were focused on them. They had checked them over and concluded that everything was fine and they didn't seem to have any abnormalities so they sent them to play upstairs.

This was when the _'no one allowed in the lab except with a parent'_ rule was implemented and when the Manson's truly began to hate what the Fenton's were doing, since Maddie had to tell Pamela about what had happened. It had taken a few days when Danny and Sam registered that they could hear the other in their minds. They could feel what the other was feeling and hold conversations without trying. It freaked Tucker out, but he was the only one that they told. Other kids started speculating that they could hear the other's thoughts – though they were only joking – a few months after the accident but Sam and Danny didn't really care. They would share dreams and cravings for certain foods, which drove a young Sam up the wall as she was trying to switch over from eating like her parents to become a vegetarian. Sometimes they could even see things through the other's eyes if they concentrated hard enough at the young age of six but by the time they reached the age of twelve the link was like second nature.

Sadly though they could feel the other's injuries as well considering how connected in the mind they were. The first incident was when the trio was on the swings when they were seven and Sam wanted to see how far they could jump from the swing to the edge of the mulch where it hit the sidewalk. She had gone first and the boys were going to wait for her to land before they went but they never got the chance. As soon as Sam landed she was on her hands and knees, she scraped them and her right arm buckled when she landed and cried out loudly. Danny's cry had mingled with hers and he had stopped swinging to hold his right arm. Tucker freaked out and ran to get the teacher and Danny stopped his own swing and made his way over to Sam who had silent tears running down her cheeks.

And they had known from that day on that they were connected more than just in their minds but they still kept it to themselves telling the teacher that Danny had jumped and landed badly from the swing as well. It was as they got older that this started to become a problem because of the bullying. Danny would receive a bruise here or there and Sam would feel the same pain, but thankfully nothing came about on her own body.

They were twelve when it got so bad that Danny decided to break off the link. He didn't want Sam getting hurt and Tucker agreed with him. Sam didn't want to relinquish something that had become a part of her and had been with her for six years, but Danny wasn't taking 'no' for an answer.

It had taken them six months to finally have no issues with the link and a year for them to never bring it up again. Sam knew if Danny knew it was back now he would make her work doubly hard to put up barriers considering what he did now was much worse than the bullying that was done when they were twelve years old. There was no way she was going to tell him about it unless she absolutely had to.

Sam was taken from her memories as Danny shifted and asked,

"It's getting late, you ready to go home?"

She could feel from him that he wanted her to say no and then he wanted her to say yes, because he felt his responsibility for the town kick in. She knew that they had spent a long time out here and that they had an incredible first date and that he should be getting back. Back to the real world.

"Not really. But you need to make your last rounds and I really hope my mother hasn't sent the cops out looking for me."

Danny's chuckle rumbled through his chest and Sam smiled as she felt it. "Yeah, I tried to get on their good side by dropping you off before your curfew."

"Like you actually stuck by it." She shook her head, then sat up. The cool air of the night hit her face and wrapped the blanket tighter around her, leaving Danny totally bare to the air. She reached over towards the basket and grabbed his sweater from where it had landed.

He took it from her and pulled it on over his head and looked her in the eyes. "In their minds I was the perfect gentleman." He took his pointer finger and bopped her on the nose lightly with it before pulling away and stood up on the blanket.

Sam followed and they began to clean up the area. Once it was cleaned and everything was back in the car they began the trek back to Amity Park. When they got closer Sam told Danny that before he took her home that she would help him finish off patrol.

She could feel his protest before he spoke it. Of course she told him that it would be best so he could get more sleep. He still wasn't having it.

"I know what you're trying to do, Sam." He eyed her from the corner of his eyes. She could feel annoyance begin to trickle through his happiness.

"Yeah, trying to finish up your tonight's work so you can get to bed at a decent hour." She rolled her eyes. Yeah, she was feeling overprotective still but she knew that he would be fine to fight considering how well he did with their earlier activities.

"Are you sure that's your only angle?"

" _Yes_."

"Oh." Confusion shot through her mind that wasn't hers.

"Why are you confused?" The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She hoped he chalked up her question to the fact that she knew him so well.

"Because yesterday you were, you know… extremely overprotective and now…"

"Now, I'm just letting you out to fight?"

"No!" He instantly protested. "I mean, that you're acting more… normal I guess. It just seems like you flipped a switch."

"I didn't _flip a switch_." Sam rolled her eyes again. "I merely deduced that you were physically fine and that you've learned your lesson watching your back from other threats besides Vlad and other ghosts."

"So you're not going to freak if I get hurt?"

"Of course I'm going to freak if you get hurt. I always do." She had never wanted to admit this to him or Tucker. It made her feel weak but she couldn't help her concerns when either of them got hurt. But she also didn't want to admit it to Danny because of his own worrying tendencies. Then again, this felt good to get off her chest and hopefully she could talk down Danny's increased worry for keeping them in the business.

"You do?" She could feel that he was honestly shocked.

"Yes." She nodded even though he couldn't see her. "I know that you always worry about Tucker and I and how we handle all of this. But when you get hurt and even a little bit I get a bit protective. You're my best friend and well, now boyfriend, but no matter what I don't want you to be hurt and Tucker's on the same page as me." Guilt instantly flowed through her and a memory flashed of a time Danny had gotten hurt from his perspective through her brain.

It was odd to see herself from his point of view but she could feel that he felt guilty about involving them in fighting ghosts whenever he had to get fixed up.

"Now, don't you start feeling guilty." She knew he would but hoped she could get him to calm down. "This is our life and you just have to know that Tucker and I deal with it and _you_ don't need to worry about it."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Great, now we sound like Fault in Our Stars. But _yes_ , okay."

"Good." She was a bit shocked that he let it go but was happy that he was feeling better about the idea.

Danny texted Tucker who said that he hadn't seen a ghost in an hour and he was on his way home. Danny and Sam took over and didn't find any ghost until half an hour later when they both hadn't had anymore ghosts to fight they decided to call it quits and head home. Danny parked the car where he had before and flew her back home from there.

When he dropped her off in her room, her door was still closed and clothes still on her bed. Good news was that her mother must have thought she really _had gone to bed_.

"This went well." Danny said after he set her down on the floor.

"Yeah, we'll have to do this again." She kept a straight face until Danny started laughing and she joined in.

"Of course." He locked eyes with her, still chuckling. "See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, your place?"

"I'll let Tucker know."

"Alright then." She smiled before reaching up on her toes and kissed him.

His hands wrapped around her waist and he leaned down to deepen the kiss and make it easier for her. She giggled – which was unlike her but she was overwhelmed with happiness – and began to pull away.

"You know you can't stay." She murmured barely against his lips.

He sighed, breath flowing across her face, "I know." He pressed his lips to hers then pulled away completely.

Sam opened her eyes as did Danny, "Love you."

"Love you, too." She responded and then he was gone, back out her window.

Danny couldn't believe how well the night had gone. He hoped that things would go well for them. He _really_ hoped that things would go well for them. It felt as though this huge weight had been lifted off his chest. He could breathe easier now that his feelings had been laid out on the table and that everything had worked out so well. He felt as though he was flying through the night sky for days. That giddiness and calm that always came over him when he flew just for fun, filled him now and he never wanted to land.

But even though he never wanted to land there seemed to be a few times where the wind gusts that were not making him happy.

Such as, right now as he pulled into his driveway and turned off the engine he was hearing Sam thinking over the details of their date. He found it incredibly weird to be able to hear her thoughts again, but also comforting. But he couldn't believe that their link was back. He thought they had buried when they were twelve.

He didn't want Sam to have to deal with the bullying as it got worse and now he _really_ didn't want this link to manifest to her. He was fairly certain that Sam wasn't on the receiving end of the link. Mainly, because he was certain that if she was on the receiving end of the link then she would have said something. He knew that she hadn't wanted to shut down their link. He hadn't wanted to either – but he knew it would be for the best.

Now he was stuck at a fork in the road. He could try and focus on locking the link back up, but why did it reopen? It had been five years since they closed the link, why now? Was it their own doing or did it have to do with Seraphina?

Danny shook his head to head to clear that thought, it couldn't have been because of Seraphina. So what did they do to have his side of the link start back up? His curiosity made him want to keep the link open because if it came back after so many years and he was able to bury it again, wouldn't that mean it would just come back again? So then what was the point? And hearing Sam now and feeling that she felt made him realize how much he's missed having her inside his head.

He would give this a shot again, he decided as he climbed into bed. But he was going to have to remember how he locked up the link the first time, just in case.

He sighed before shutting off the light in his room and pulled the covers up around him. He fell asleep to Sam's thoughts of their night filling his head bringing with it the first peaceful sleep he's had in months.

* * *

 **September 21** **st** **, 2014**

 **Sunday**

 **Fenton household**

 **Late Afternoon**

Sunday was spent as any other Sunday except for the fact that Danny and Sam had to tell Tucker about their date. They even went to go see The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.

Tucker was all over the details, and the couple agreed to keep the kissing details to a minimum. Though throughout the day he made many remarks about the scarf that Sam wore around her neck. Tucker was extremely happy with the fact that they had a great first date and Danny and Sam were happy Tucker wasn't acting weird around them.

The rest of the day they finished their homework, looked over the information gathered from the GIW and fought ghosts. At this time Danny brought up the idea of going to see Clockwork. Ever since the day they tried to see him and he hadn't been there Danny knew they needed to go back into the Zone for the specific reason to meet with him. While reading about their info on ghosts the GIW had, it had brought back those memories to the front of Danny's mind.

"What about tomorrow?" Sam question.

"Can't. Mom wants both me and Dad home for dinner." Tucker answered twirling around in Danny's desk chair.

"Tuesday?" Danny moved on then waited for either of them to protest. When neither of them did he clapped his hands together and rubbed them. "Alright then, Tuesday it is."

Sunday passed relatively well, the trio ate Dinner at the Fenton's; Maddie and Jack were excited about hearing the details of their first date. Sam and Danny told them the basics leaving a lot out of what they had told Tucker, but it satisfied them none-the-less.

Monday was an adventure all into itself. The whole school seemed to zero in on Danny and Sam's interlocked hands as they walked through the halls in the morning.

It was odd that so many people came up and congratulated both of them. The first one was Mikey and a few of his friends. Then it started a cycle of everyone coming up to them or clapping and cheering as they passed. Even the Popular's seemed relieved to see them as a couple. Danny and Sam were so disoriented that by the time their first class had started they barely realized that they were sitting in their typical seats.

"I'm happy that both you and Miss Manson are together now, however it is imperative that you both pay attention to the lesson." Mr. Lancer began the class.

"Uh, yes sir." Danny stumbled out.

Lancer smiled at both of them before beginning class. That wasn't even the strangest part. The Popular's left them alone all morning until lunch. Not one word was spoken, not one glaring look, not even a check to the shoulder or punch in the gut.

Well, until lunch.

Tucker had gotten his food and placed it down on the table before taking off with a quick, "Going to the office". Danny and Sam shared a confused look as they watched Tucker go through the doors into the school from the outside quad. They were answered a couple minutes later as Tucker's voice came through the PA system.

"Everyone can I have your attention please? Yes, this here is Tucker Foley and ladies that is TF for 'Too Fine' you can find me with our finally together couple Danny Fenton and Sam Manson!" he let out a whoop of celebration. All eyes were on the couple now and many had whooped and cheered after Tucker.

"Now I know many of us are excited but now it's time to get to the reason for the announcement. Since our resident lovebirds have now figured themselves out we must announce the winner of the bet." Tucker took a pause and the entire quad became quiet and turned their focus from Danny and Sam to the speakers by the doors. "I have already informed this person of their win, and that person is, drum roll please." He must have pushed a button on his PDA because a drum roll sounded through the quad causing most of the teens to cry out in annoyance because they wanted Tucker to get it over and done with already.

"Jazz Fenton!" he announced. The cries of outrage made Danny and Sam look on in shock at the amount of people in on the bet. "I have posted the time sheet for anyone who bet on all of the bulletins in the school. Peace out! And congrats to my two best friends in the world!" And he was done.

"Umm… Did that just happen?" Danny asked furrowing his brows.

"Oh yeah. And you're going to pay for all the money I lost on you guys." Dash and Paulina with Kwan and Star stood at the end of their table.

Danny sighed and rested his head in his hands; Sam placed her hand on his knee comfortingly. He could feel her slight worry about what Dash was going to make him do. Sam could feel Danny's calmness and tried to focus on that. Sam knew – actually everyone knew – that Dash could be extremely cruel and disgusting when it came to bets. The dirty underwear came to mind.

"How much do I have to give back to you?"

"Pssh, like we care about the money." Paulina examined her nails, looking positively bored. At the same time Dash said,

"$80."

"$80!" Danny and Sam exclaimed.

"You're going to be my punching bag for two weeks, wash my car, do my dry cleaning, clean my room and do my homework."

"You're joking." He deadpanned.

"Does it look like I'm joking Fentina?"

"Hey guys!" Tucker arrived, walked around the heard of A-Listers and sat down at his tray.

"And Foley's going to join you. Oh, and did I mention that that applies to all four of us?"

"What did I miss?" Tucker asked with wide eyes.

"No way are they doing that." Sam announced at the same time as Tucker spoke.

"They will unless you want horrible rumors to be spread around about all of you losers." Paulina finally looked up from her nails and glared at Sam who glared back making the Latina flinch.

"Ha, rumors are only rumors. They won't matter as long as we know what's right."

An evil smile spread across Paulina's lips, "Even one such as: 'You three are so close because you've been having threesomes since freshman year'?"

"What?!" The boys cried out in rage looking at Sam with scared eyes.

She only shrugged and kept an impassive look on her face and squeezed Danny's knee trying to tell him to let her handle it. "It's not true so I have no reason to be affected by it because I know the truth."

"We'll do it!" Danny and Tucker said simultaneously, faces red and they couldn't look at the other.

"Good. My house at 3 o'clock. Don't be late." Dash smirked. He and Kwan punched Danny and Tucker on the arms respectively and walked away with the girls back to their table.

"Sam!"

"You guys!" They yelled simultaneously. Sam let go of Danny's knee.

"Oh my gods, we have got to stop that." Tucker said exasperated.

"I can't believe you were going to let Paulina say that about us." Danny spoke for them both in shock.

"I can't believe you guys agreed to their demands." She glared up at him.

"Well yeah, it was that or people thinking that we had sex with _Tucker_."

"Which is so wrong on so many levels." Tucker inputted. Danny pointed at him and raised his eyebrows, showing he confirmed his point.

"Yeah, but all three of us know it wouldn't be true. And she's probably going to spread that around _anyway_." She rolled her eyes.

"Not unless we do those horrid things for them." Tucker said. Sam waited eyeing him until he looked up from his food with a startled look at Danny. "Oh gods! Dude she'll totally do it _anyway_!"

"I doubt that she'll spread _that_ rumor." Danny rolled his eyes.

"You so sure about that?" Sam arched a brow at him and Tucker looked at them both with panic.

Danny and Sam locked eyes. Danny could feel Sam pressing into him wanting him to believe that she was right about Paulina. Because who wouldn't know better than Sam about the words Paulina says. Sam could feel Danny's resistance to believing that Paulina would go that far. But Sam kept pushing for him to believe her.

"Damn it."

* * *

 **September 23** **rd** **, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **The Ghost Zone: Clockwork's Tower**

 **6:40 p.m.**

"I hope Clockwork is actually here this time." Sam said as the team flew the Specter Speeder through the Ghost Zone.

"If not we're waiting until he comes back."

"Yeah, and if that just happens to take two weeks, I'm all for that." Tucker added from his seat next to Danny.

"I'll second that." Danny laughed.

Yesterday had gone as well as any one of them had expected. Danny and Tucker were dropped off at Dash's by Sam a little after 3 o'clock with a "See you later boys, play nice" before driving off.

Dash had given his homework to Tucker and made Danny wash and wax his car. After that Dash had told them to come back the next day to continue with their bet punishment. Of course that had gone over just as well as yesterday. They had to finish up the rest of Dash's homework – which was given to them at the end of school, along with the other's homework – and to clean his room. It was disgusting and sucked but they did it anyway.

They ate a quick meal together at Danny's house, with the Fenton parents who left as soon as they had eaten because they had a meeting with the GIW over new weaponry. When the trio had finished eating they gathered their supplies and made their way down to the lab before hopping into the Specter Speeder and making their way to Clockwork's.

"You guys shouldn't have agreed at all." Sam rolled her eyes.

"I know." The boys grumbled together.

It took them a few more minutes of flying through the Zone before they arrived at Clockwork's. They flew the Speeder through the clock towers' wall before parking far enough away from the screens to ensure they didn't mess anything up.

Danny was the first to exit the Speeder but was granted with an empty viewing room. "Clockwork!" He called cupping his hands around his mouth. But the tower remained empty. The trio called out for a few minutes searching through the few hallways and rooms that were in the clock tower, but they couldn't find Clockwork.

It was an hour later that Clockwork appeared to see them all settled in front of the Specter Speeder with papers laid out before them and Sam sketching in her sketchbook.

"What, are you all doing?" Clockwork's voice carried throughout the tower causing everyone to look up.

"What are we doing?" Danny asked, standing up from his spot, "Where have _you_ been?"

Tucker and Sam followed suit leaving their papers on the ground. The boys had been working on their own homework and then copying it to the A-List's work. They couldn't wait until this torture was over.

"You are here for a reason; let us move on with it." Clockwork hovered in the same spot he arrived in changing into his older self, arms still crossed over his chest.

"You already know why we're here." Danny knew he was being a bit harsh but he was desperate for answers and he was annoyed with everything that had happened since the start of the school year and it all came pressing down on him in that instant.

"Yes, however I would still like to hear your questions." The trio could see the slight pinch in his eyes meaning he was not happy with Danny's tone.

"I have one," Tucker spoke up. "Where have you been? We were here two weeks ago and we spent hours waiting and then today it took you an hour. What gives?"

"Yes, because I'm here for your every beck and call."

Danny sighed and closed his eyes, "Sorry, sorry. That was rude." He opened his eyes and gave another sigh. "I just really need to figure out some things and you're the only one that has the answers."

"Or at least we're _fairly sure_ you have the answers." Sam added.

"Oh, I have the answers." His smirk was back on his face. "Though I'm not sure you'll like some of them."

"You mean that I won't like the fact that some of the ghosts are saying that I'm the next Ghost King?"

"It's the truth."

This shocked the group into silence. Danny's mouth had fallen open, eyes wide.

"Wait, what?" The trio wasn't sure why they were quite so shocked, it was a topic of discussion since they had learned about it. But coming from Clockwork, it was a firm confirmation. Confirmation that this was truly going to happen. They were shocked into silence by the mere fact that their hope of it going away was shattered to pieces because Clockwork's word was true.

"So it's true then?" Sam asked her voice coming out barely above a whisper. All her earlier worries came back to the front of her mind. But now she didn't know what would happen with him or the other ghosts or the entire Ghost Zone. But she knew she would do her best to be there for him.

"Yes, until he fully accepts it himself. _Truly_ accepts the fact that he is the next Ghost King, will he be able to take the title."

"What happens when I accept it?"

Clockwork stayed silent for a few seconds and the trio realized he wasn't going to answer.

"Do you _know_ what I have to do?"

"Of course."

"Then why can't you just tell us?" Tucker groaned in annoyance.

"Because the information will only be important once Danny has accepted his position."

Silence bared down on the group again as they tried to think of what could happen next, when Danny was reminded of questions that had been asked when they had talked with Frostbite.

"Why is it me that was given this? I know that I had been able to get Pariah into the Sarcophagus but Vlad was the one that had been able to lock him in. He even still has the key!"

"Would you rather see him as the next Ghost King?"

"No." They all chorused.

"Then I would advise not declining the title."

"If he does, then Vlad is next in line? But couldn't he just kill Danny to gain the throne?" Sam questioned causing both of the boys to turn and look at her with wide eyes.

"Sam!"

"What?" She turned to look at them. "There are a billion and one ghosts in the Zone; being worried about Vlad attacking holds more priority to me than anyone else."

"Yes, others can and probably will attack you for the power. Including Plasmius." Clockwork conceded dropping his crossed arms.

"Great." Danny grumbled, looking down at the floor, eyebrows pulling together. "Just terrific. If I don't accept this, then Vlad will and if Vlad takes over the Ghost Zone then we're all dead. At least most of us." He looked back up at Clockwork with hard eyes, "And what if I just keep ' _contemplating_ ' about accepting? What happens then?"

"Things you are not ready to see." Clockwork deadpanned.

"What about…" Sam swallowed the lump that quickly rose to her throat. "Will this affect Danny's personality?"

"That is something only time will tell."

Danny's hands curled into fists at his sides, "You mean, you've seen me go rogue in one of the timelines?"

"I've seen many things that may happen if you take the power. However we will not know for sure until it has happened."

"Is that why you're being un-forthcoming about certain information?" Tucker asked.

When Clockwork didn't answer the trio took that to mean, 'yes'.

Danny sighed and began to pace back and forth in between everyone. Sam and Tucker watched him with apprehension. They knew it would be best for him to pace though, knowing it would help him get his frustrations better under control. Sam could feel his anger and confusion coursing through him. At this time she wanted to comfort him, reassure him that things could get better. But she knew that it would probably get worse. But that didn't mean she still didn't want to reassure him that her and Tucker were going to be with him the entire time. That they could overcome anything if they all stuck together and he just needed to calm down and think clearly.

Not that she was thinking clearly and she was sure Tucker's brain was a jumbled mess as well. But this wasn't their decision to make.

Danny's mind was running a million miles a minute. He couldn't believe that this had actually been confirmed that he was supposed to be the next Ghost King. But he knew he couldn't do it. There were too many factors that came into play that suggested he would be killed and Vlad would probably be the one to do it and then the Ghost Zone would be in peril again. But if he didn't accept this position then Vlad would be the next Ghost King anyway. And he had the key still! And Danny was fairly sure that he had the Ring of Rage as well considering they couldn't find it after the attack. But he couldn't just let the decision sit there considering Clockwork was being so cryptic about what would happen if he did that.

"Wait," Danny stopped in his pacing to look at Clockwork, "who's in charge of the Zone right now?"

Clockwork let out a sigh, which made the trio think he really hadn't wanted to answer this question. "The Observants."

"What!" The trio shouted in shock.

"Those creepy eyeballs are in charge right now?" Tucker exclaimed.

"How come they're the next ones in charge?" Sam questioned as Danny started walking again.

"They are a council to the Ghost King. They have been in charge since Pariah's defeat."

"What about the Ancient Ghosts that locked him away?" Danny questioned. When Clockwork didn't answer he stopped his pacing again and looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Another thing you're not going to tell me?"

"Correct."

The trio groaned loudly but knew from what Clockwork said earlier that this was probably the best way to make sure nothing bad happened. They've gone through a few bad time lines and they didn't want to mess with this one since it was turning out so well. The few timelines that have been messed with usually resulted in either of the trio going rogue and it didn't end well for anyone or anything. Of course these timelines only ended this way because of significant deaths of the group including Jazz and Dani but typically Clockwork was able to come in and stop that certain timeline from happening.

"Frostbite said that there was a Ghost King, er... Queen, who ruled before Pariah Dark. What can you tell us about her?" Sam asked.

"What has he told you?"

"She created the Crown of Fire and the Ring of Rage and that she had magical qualities." Sam answered before Tucker or Danny could.

"And that the Ancients locked her away like they did to Pariah Dark..." Danny added.

"Because she was killing humans off." Tucker finished.

"That is what has happened."

"But what's her story? Why was she killing off humans? Was she the one to start the fear of ghosts that we have or did she just make it stronger?" Danny questioned.

"Please sit." Clockwork told them. When they were all seated next to the other on the ground before him he began to speak again.

"Long before Pariah Dark even existed in this realm and before Aletikize had taken the title of Ghost Queen, the power over the Ghost Zone remained with Death."

"You mean that Death has a form?" Tucker blurted out as Sam and Danny asked the same question in similar forms.

"Yes. However, save questions for when I have finished." He gave them a pointed look and then they all shut up, but were still amazed that Death had a body.

"Aletikize was among the Ancients who did Death's bidding. During this time the two realms coexisted much better than today. Humans were unafraid of ghosts and ghosts did not want to frighten humans. Things were simpler. There were more portals and they stayed open longer making it easier for ghosts to travel back and forth between worlds. However, Aletikize was not fond of humans and began to secretly torture and kill them. Of course the other Ancients found out about what she was doing and ordered her to stop, or be stripped of her power.

"The Ancients had greater power than most which is why they were able to help rule the Ghost Zone. Only their power was only able to manifest when they were together. When Aletikize did not stop in her tribulations they stripped her of their joined power. Except she knew that they would do this and did not stop in her actions. She created the Crown of Fire and Ring of Rage to enhance her abilities to that of the power she held among the Ancients.

"The power that she manifested through the Crown and Ring took time as she was sentenced to spend the rest of eternity in Death's prison. When they were done, she escaped and gained control of the Ghost Zone by defeating Death for the throne. The killings increased and soon she found Pariah Dark performing acts in her favor. He became her second in command, and the Fright Knight was the leader of her army. The Ancients tried many times to defeat her, but were unsuccessful at each approach.

"When the population of humans had been exterminated by almost 70%, Pariah Dark finally realized she would not stop in her purpose to completely destroy them. You see, he did not want to destroy all humans because he wanted there to be things that feared him besides ghosts. He devised a mutiny with the other Ancients and the Fright Knight at his back.

"With this enforced power they are able to defeat her and destroyed her essence. Pariah took the Crown of Fire and Ring of Rage for himself and took the title of the new Ghost King. You know the rest."

The trio sat there stunned for nearly ten minutes, processing everything that had been spilled out in front of them. As he waited, Clockwork moved to his screens on the other side of the tower to give them time which he knew they needed.

Danny couldn't stop thinking over the fact that both Aletikize and Pariah Dark had gone incredibly bad when they were in power. Sure they had had horrible intentions to begin with, but those turned worse once they actually held the power of the throne. Would that happen to him? If he took the title would he end up at some point turning into Dan? Or was this the reason that Clockwork had only given the basic information? If he accepted the title on his own terms and kept his own morals then he would be fine. Or at least he hoped. He knew Clockwork would not have given him this much information if this would lead them down that horrible path.

Tucker was unsure about what this meant for Danny in the long run. He knew that Danny could keep his values in control but what would happen if another ghost tried to over throw him? Like Vlad. Did he have to have the Crown and Ring to be able to be King of the Ghost Zone? And what did Danny get out of this? Because the whole situation sounded as if Danny would gain incredible power, but otherwise it would be a pretty bad deal all around.

Sam on the other hand was thinking more long term than the boys. She was trying to wrap her mind around what would happen to Danny for his life. If he took the title of Ghost King would that mean he would be more ghost than human? And if he was, did that mean he would never die? Would he remain the Ghost King forever until someone destroyed him? If that was so what would happen to Danny's psyche once her, Tucker, Jazz and Dani were gone? They had already seen what would happen if they were killed now, and it wasn't pretty. Would he be able to pass down the title at some point to a successor of his choosing? She wanted to know if he would have to change himself to be the Ghost King. And what about the new power that Aragon had spoken of? Would this ghost - at least she figured it was a ghost - try and fight Danny for the title? Aragon made them seem incredibly powerful and she wasn't sure what that meant for their and the entire Zone's future.

"I know that you have many questions," Clockwork's voice broke them out of their thoughts. "But most will be answered in time."

Sam reached over to her left and intertwined her fingers with Danny's. Danny was happy that she had done this because he was about to intertwine his with hers. He needed to feel connected to not only Sam though but to Tucker and grabbed Tucker's right hand in his left.

"Okay, so you know the questions that we want to ask and that they can only be answered through time, but you are time." Tucker wondered aloud.

"Very observant." Clockwork drawled. "You may ask the questions you wish and I will choose whether you need to know the answer now or not."

The trio sat and thought over the questions they had and tried to focus on the ones that Clockwork would be more willing to answer. Danny came through first voicing the question from earlier, "Will this affect my humanity?"

"Not in the way you are thinking."

"What's Danny getting out of all of this? You know besides the power influx?" Tucker asked.

"I believe you misunderstood. The power influx is only through the wearing of the Crown and the Ring."

"Which would mean we would have to get the Ring back from Plasmius." When Clockwork didn't answer they took that to mean 'yes'.

"But what am I supposed to do as King? How do I benefit as well?"

"You are both ghost and human. You will benefit far more than anyone else."

"What do you mean?" The trio asked, but were not given an answer and huffed in annoyance.

As Danny thought of another question, Sam's thoughts came through his mind like a speeding car and he was able to determine one of her questions.

"Will I be the Ghost King forever and never die?"

"Will he be the Ghost King forever and never die?"

Sam and Danny looked at the other in shock, eyes wide both for different reasons. Tucker looked at them strangely but figured they had spoken at the same time because it was just how they were. Clockwork on the other hand smirked as he looked at them.

"I see." The couple looked away from each other and to Clockwork with confused eyes, but each was certain that he knew about their link being back. They mentally crossed their fingers that he wouldn't say anything aloud to the other. "I am unable to answer that question until you, Danny, have accepted the title."

The group sat in silence for another minute before Sam spoke her next and final question. "Aragon mentioned that he was working with a new power, some ghost, can you tell us what they are trying to do? Or even who they are?"

Clockwork merely shook his head in reply.

Danny groaned, "Great, another thing to add to the list to figure out ourselves." He sighed and got up from the floor, pulling Sam and Tucker with him. "Thank you."

"Yeah." Tucker rubbed the back of his neck, "Thanks. Sorry about being kind of rude earlier."

"Be careful." Is all Clockwork said before turning around and moving back towards his video screens.

The trio made their way back to the Speeder. The gathered all of their belongings and placed them inside, just as they were about to leave Sam sucked in a sharp breath and told them to wait.

She made her way over to her sketchpad, pulled out a paper and made her way back over to Clockwork. "Here, this is for you." She held out the paper to him.

He reached out slowly and took the paper from her. His eyes immediately went to the three drawings of him in his younger, adult and eldest form.

"I just know that you don't have much in here that's yours and I wanted to say thank you for always helping Danny. It means a lot to all of us." And with that she turned on her heel and back to the Specter Speeder. The boys gave her odd looks, but she waved them off and they flew out of Clockwork's tower and towards home.

Clockwork hovered in his spot, looking down at himself sketched in pencil on the paper for a few minutes before a smile stretched across his face. He waved his left arm out to the side beckoning a screen to come over to him. He waved his hand in front of it and a frozen image appeared.

A tree stood in a living room, decorated in lights and ribbon, presents appeared underneath. Danny sat in an arm chair with Sam in his lap, holding presents out to Dani. She wore a bright smile and a twinkle was in her eye. Tucker sat further away, a girl next to him, both in the process of exchanging presents with the other. On the other side of the room sat Jazz with a young man smiling at Dani on a couch, opened presents sat at their feet.

"All is as it should be."

 **September 23** **rd** **, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **The Ghost Zone: Clockwork's Tower**

 **8:45 p.m.**

* * *

Hey guys! So thoughts, opinions, just wanna say hey? Let me know!

 **How to pronounce Aletikize!** ALE-TEE-KEEZE

I would love to see a **minimum of 7 reviews** again please!

BTW got the idea for the link from Butch because he said that he was originally going to have Danny and Sam have a psychic link but nixed the idea before the show started. I've read a few stories with the 'link' in them and i really wanted to try it for myself. Fingers crossed! lol

 ******* Answers to Reviewers:

 **Blue11msu:** Hey! Thank you so much for your review! About the flashback you mentioned for ch. 16. i had actually tried it but it just didn't read right :( But don't worry! Flashbacks will be making a huge appearance after this chapter. Well, they've been happening but i'll be talking about them soon lol. Hope you liked this chapter!

 **ShinyMudipGal:** Uh... idk how many words a minute i write. i guess a lot, but i've always found that typing is easy for me. But it also helps that i also write out a lot of my chapters first and then type them up. But it never takes me very long.

 **SamXDanny:** Ah! i loved your review! totally made me smile for like three straight hours after i read it :) hahahaha i was thinking about the whole sex thing and then i was like 'uh probably shouldn't' but hot damn i wanted them too! lol gotta luv dxs smut lol! Yeah! about thirty more chapters! It's a guesstimation though it might still be up to 75 chapters tho :) but we have a long time till this story ends! believe me we've just scratched the surface of things in this chapter! :)

 **Great:** Yep! plan to make about three books probably. Thanks for your review! and i totally understand about getting super busy during the holidays! lol anyway, i'm glad you like the telepathy thing! i actually saw that Butch had planned early on that they were going to have it, but then decided to not put it in the show and i've really always wanted to do a 'link' story since i've read a few good ones! :)

 **CaptainDorito:** Loved reading your review! it totally made me smile for like hours on end! lol that's hilarious that DP came on when you were reading the last chapter, that's a sign right there that you're in the best fandom ever. Hope you liked this one!

 **ShadowDragon357:** You ship Jazz and Tucker together too?! Cuz i love seeing them together! So is FakeoutMakeout the new name for Amethyst Ocean? cuz i've been seeing it on Tumblr but i've been tagging my story under Amethyst Ocean. Do i need to start tagging under FakeoutMakeout too? cuz i thought that one was lesser that Amethyst Ocean? Anyway, hope you liked this chapter! :)

 **Rocky Rooster:** I'm so happy that you love my story so much! And thank you! That was the best compliment i've heard! I couldn't stop smiling all day when i read your review. Hope you liked this chapter!

 **Savirox:** Well, i've never actually written a lemon and posted it on here, but i've wanted to for some time. Our lovely couple might just get into a bit of the lemony goodness but it will be posted seperately from this story because i want to keep it under the T rating. but when it comes (lol) to the time i might just post it on here and up the rating. Not sure yet. But they won't be getting it on for a while. :( but i want to be realistic about them :) hope you liked this chapter!


	19. Nightmares and Confessions

Author's Note is at the bottom **! ***Important for next update!**

 ***Answers to reviews at bottom: Blue11msu, SamXDanny, Arialinax921, ShadowDragon357, Rocky Rooster, Savirox, Capitolblonde, , CaptainDorito.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom. Or the lyrics to the song Impossible Year by Panic! At the Disco**

* * *

 **There's never air to breathe**

 **There's never in-betweens**

 **These nightmares always hang on past the dream**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Nightmares and Confessions**

 **Word count: 3,208**

 **1/21/16**

* * *

 **September 23** **rd** **, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **Sam's bedroom**

 **11:00 p.m.**

"What are we going to do for Danny's birthday?"

"I'm thinking something quiet." Tucker answered Sam's question as she made her way around her room getting ready for bed.

"What if we went down to visit Jazz?"

"But wouldn't that put the focus onto Jazz and not Danny?"

Sam rolled her eyes as she heard Tucker start his electronic toothbrush. "You know he doesn't like it when it's all about him."

"Neither do we." Tucker said around a mouthful of toothpaste.

"True. Which is why I think taking him down to St. Louis to visit Jazz would be a small break. Time to get his thoughts straight without ghosts or Vlad or the GIW or his parents, pressing down on him."

The only sound on the other side of the line was the sound of Tucker brushing his teeth. Sam took this time to wrap a head band over her hair to keep it away from her face along with a low ponytail and washed her face. She always found it easier to wash her face before jumping in the shower.

"Okay, so now we just have to get Danny in the car and down there." Tucker finally said.

"The hard part." She agreed with him on that. "But it'll be good for him. Plus he can use this time to talk with Jazz about the flashbacks and dreams he's been having since he was taken."

"You mean he hasn't mentioned anything to you?"

"No." She growled out. She had been privy to the flashbacks since Saturday night and feelings he held behind each one including his nightmares but he had yet to come to her or Tucker to talk about them as usual.

"Oh." She heard him sigh, "I just uh... just figured since you guys were together now that, you know, he'd be more open with things like that."

Sam closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. She had actually hoped that her and Danny getting together would have provided him with the idea that he could come to her - or Tucker - to talk about what had happened more so than before. "Maybe we just have to give him time. We've only been together since Friday night, not even a week."

"Yeah but,"

"And anyway," She watched herself in her bathroom mirror, locking eyes with her reflected image. "It's not as though being a couple means that who we are, is going to change. Danny's always going to try and deal with his problems himself first and I'm always going to be determined show him that me and you and Jazz and Dani will always be there."

She looked away from her image after the silence on the phone stretched into a mine. She left her bathroom and moved to sit in one of her arm chairs in front of her window to finish her conversation with Tucker before her shower.

"So should I go ahead and get the train tickets or do we wanna drive down?" Tucker finally spoke after another minute of silence.

"We can take the train; we'll go right after school on that Friday."

"You wanna call Jazz and tell her or should I?"

"Nah, I can do it." She smiled to herself as she felt Danny finally relax and was asleep. "I hope he likes it."

"I'm sure he will." Tucker answered lightly. "Hey, Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm really happy you two are together."

"Me too." A thought instantly came to her noticing the way Tucker's tone of voice was different than before, "And Tucker, if we... if me and Danny ever exclude you or you feel like we are just... you know, say something. We won't mean to, we're still 'the trio'," She chuckled at the group name. "And I don't want to make you feel excluded. Even on accident."

"Thanks Sam." She could tell he was relieved by her words and she herself was relieved that she got that out of the way. "But I know things will change. But I don't mind."

"But..."

"It's okay." He said reassuringly, "I'll tell you when you guys are being jerks, but it's okay to take that time Sam. You guys deserve it after all this time."

"I love you." Was all she could think to respond with. Man, she was feeling way too touchy feely lately. Sometimes though it was hard to remember that Tucker had grown up so much because of his joking around. But times like these let her truly see him.

"Love you too." He yawned and contagiously sent it to Sam, "Alright, well after everything from today I'm beat. See you in the morning."

"See ya." She responded before hanging up. She stayed rooted in her chair for a few minutes before getting up and hopping in the shower.

When she was done and wrapped deep in her red comforter she let her mind go clear and let her mind reach out to Danny who was dreaming peacefully. She couldn't help the smile that happened across her lips at the fact he was sleeping so well at the moment.

Of course this didn't last long.

* * *

 _She watched as if she was an observer. She remembered when they were younger and she would get sucked into his dreams and find it so odd that she never ended up seeing the dream through him, but she liked it better this way. She was able to tell that it was his dream and she was trapped in that state of consciousness where you were dreaming and knew you were dreaming but couldn't wake up._

 _She currently stood in the middle of the Nasty Burger though it was odd because not only were the normal Casper High crew there but ghosts that they faced multiple times. Sam couldn't catch the faces or bodies clearly; it was something she just knew. She wasn't focused on them though because before her sat herself, Danny and Tucker laughing away at something._

 _Sam smiled to herself happy to see that Danny dreamed of the happy things and then the dream got flipped. One second she was standing there laughing with them and the next she was trapped in ectoplasmic rope... or at least her dream self was... wait did that make sense? She rubbed her temples, 'whatever', the dream version of herself that Danny had manifested._

 _She was back outside the Nasty Burger and she could see Danny fighting Dan. And was losing._

 _"You'll always be me." Dan growled sending a large and powerful ectobeam at Danny who didn't move quickly enough. He was in his human form and Sam wondered why he hadn't changed into his ghostly form?_

 _"Say good-bye." Dan growled again, she followed Dan's gaze to find herself at the others attached to the vat of sauce and was blinded by the explosion. Except this time it didn't look like CW was going to save them._

 _"No!" she heard Danny cry out and Dan held on to him making him watch._

 _She had to stop this, wake him up. "Danny!" She yelled and moved towards him - surprised that she now had some sort of physical body. "Wake up! Come on Danny!" She walked over to them where Danny struggle in Dan's arms to no avail and shouting obscenities at him._

 _And then she was flipped again. But this time she wasn't supposed to be there._

 _Danny was laid out just like he had been when she, Tucker and Jazz had found him. At this time though there were two large cuts on him, a few burns and the burned numbers on his arm. Agent Mendoza appeared next to the examination table Danny was strapped to._

 _"It's just you and me now." His voice growled out._

 _"Yeah, real fun times." She saw Danny role his eyes_

 _"It would be better," The Agent began to move around the table as if he was a lion stalking his prey, "If you cooperated with us, then we'd really have a party."_

 _"Doubt it'd be the best I've been too." Danny snarked back, but cried out as Agent Mendoza pulled out a small electric Taser and shocked Danny on the side of his exposed abdomen._

" _Stop!" Sam shouted then pulled up short when she realized this was a memory, a nightmare and that she couldn't stop what has happened. She looked around the room trying to tone out the talking and torturing that was happening and focused on trying to find another Danny. It happened a couple of times before they shut down the link when he would have a nightmare she could always find another Danny – apparently it was the same thing with her, or so Danny told her._

 _She moved around the room but could not find anything or anyone else and decided to wake him up by focusing on the Danny that was laid out before her._

 _A bone-chilling scream pierced her ears as she turned and found that Agent Mendoza had broken Danny's leg and had pulled out red liquid, dribbling it onto his chest._

" _Stop it!" She couldn't help but yell again and was instantly at Danny's side. "Wake up!" She grabbed Danny's shoulder and shook him – ignoring the restraints – but he was focused on Agent Mendoza. "Danny!" She yelled, "Wake up! You have to wake up!"_

" _Come on." Danny coughed, "Is that really the best you can do?" He closed his eyes, took a steadying breath and opened them again. Sam saw Agent Mendoza's face twist into a murderous smile._

 _He pulled out the vile that held what Sam figured to be the liquid blood blossoms and began to drip along a new spot. Danny sucked in a sharp breath but focused on not screaming out, she could see his jaw muscles clenching so tight that he might have cracked a tooth – even though she knew that he hadn't. "What is in power of the Ghost Zone?" When Danny didn't answer, the drips of blood blossoms became faster._

" _Danny." She shook his shoulder again. "Danny, look at me." She had to wake him up, she didn't want him to go through this alone again. "Wake up." She snapped her fingers in front of his eyes._

 _He blinked quickly as if he was coming out of a daze and turned his head towards her, "Sam?" Agent Mendoza stopped dripping the blood blossoms and said something that she didn't catch. But Danny did as he turned his eyes away from her and back towards the Agent. "You know nothing." The growl that emitted from him reminded her of a few days ago when he was so angered and kept freezing everything._

" _Danny." She said harshly, his head turned quickly back to her. "Wake up. You have to wake up."_

" _You're not… here. You're not supposed to be here." His eyes widened. "Get out before they take you too!"_

" _I'm not here." She reassured. "You need to wake up."_

" _But what, ah!" He yelled out when the Agent moved his broken leg, and continued to drip the blood blossoms._

" _Danny!" She yelled worriedly, "You're okay, now! But you have to wake up. Wake up!"_

* * *

Blackness coated her vision and a gasp racked through her body before she realized she was awake and still laying in her bed. She opened her eyes to the darkness of her bedroom, looking to her left at her alarm clock she was surprised to find that it read 3:07 a.m.

She reached out in her mind to Danny's hoping to find that he was awake as well. She focused on his thoughts when she felt him in her own mind.

' _Sam?'_

' _Danny?'_ She gasped aloud as she felt his presence in her mind growing strong and she couldn't help the smile that spread across her face that she could actually hear him, feel him inside her mind again. _'You can hear me?'_

' _You were in my dream.'_

' _Nightmare.'_ She could practically hear him roll his eyes at her.

' _Whichever. You pulled me out. I didn't think you could hear me.'_

' _I wasn't sure that you could hear me either. I didn't even know that the link was working on your side.'_

' _I thought it was only_ me _who had the link back again.'_

' _You're not…"_ She stopped her sentence she was about to say but Danny must have picked up on her thought already because he finished it for her.

' _mad at you?_ '

She was going to need to practice on putting up certain walls again. _'Uh, yeah. Look, I didn't say anything because I really missed having you up here. Of course I didn't realize how much I missed it until…'_

' _Until we had it back.'_ He finished, and she could feel that he was under the same feeling as her. _'I wanted to say something but I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep it or not yet.'_

Sam sighed and rubbed her temples. She really wanted to have this conversation about the link but right now she didn't want to get too far off from the memory. _'We can talk about it later. Wanna tell me about that nightmare?'_

Silence greeted her on Danny's side of the link but she could feel his emotions running. Worry, protective, space, relief, scared. He flashed between them quickly before he finally answered her. _'I really didn't want to drag you in to that.'_

' _You need to talk to somebody Danny. I don't care if it's me or Tucker or Jazz or gods forbid_ Vlad _. It's been just over two weeks and you've been having flashbacks and nightmares – worse than normal. We just want to help you get through this.'_ She knew she was sounding harsh but she sent feelings of hope and helpfulness and caring and protectiveness to him; letting him in on what she was truly feeling.

' _There's no_ getting through this _.'_ He bit out. _'There's only dealing until the next horrible thing comes up again.'_

She watched as memories of the accident, Dan, Freakshow, the GIW torturing him, fights with Vlad, previous knowledge of other timelines, and Valerie aiming to kill. Memories of his hardships. Memories of things he had to deal with everyday down to Dash calling him poorly made new names.

' _Stop.'_ She demanded fiercely. _'You are not feeling sorry for yourself. You are not going to sit here any longer in self-pity. You've been doing it for the past two weeks – or so your memories suggest – and it is going to stop_ right now _.'_

' _I am not wallowing in…'_

' _I can feel it, Danny.'_

' _I knew I should have focused on shutting down the link when it first popped up on Saturday.'_

She blew air out of her nose, temper rising. _'Well, why didn't you then. You knew we would come across this bridge at some point. Even if you didn't think I could hear you or feel you again, these flashbacks would have come up without me seeing your nightmare. So go ahead try to get rid of it, but I am_ not _losing this again.'_

' _I don't want to get rid of it.'_ Danny sighed in her mind. She wasn't surprised to feel how tired he felt.

She took three steadying breaths to calm her temper before speaking. _'Okay, just, can you tell me what's so different this time around? You've never taken this much time before. Even with the flashbacks. What was so different about this time around?'_

Worded silence traveled over the link but his feelings came across clear as day; though she couldn't understand all of them yet. Sadness, worry, protectiveness, anger, care, hopefulness, pain, fear. She wanted to speak up as they rushed into her but she kept her mouth shut knowing Danny would explain; he just had to gather his thoughts.

' _It was just_ me _this time.'_ Though talking through the link was different than talking aloud she could almost hear the quietness of his words. _'You guys weren't captured, you guys had to come rescue me, and you all weren't being tortured for information. I wanted to keep everyone – especially you – out of it because why put you through new tortures that were my own fault.'_

' _This was not your fault.'_ She made sure to send reassuring thoughts towards him but it didn't seem to be helping. _'This was Vlad's fault if it was anyone's. He was the one who called in the Guys in White. He was the one who set you up. It was Vlad's fault. And no matter what happened in there does not mean that we aren't going to be there for you. I'm surprised you don't know that by now. You don't have to carry this burden alone.'_

Sometimes when he got like this – which was rarer than Vlad giving a compliment to Jack – she knew that reasoning with him would only work part of the time. Reminding him that they would all be there to help him with this didn't make him happy but he would further understand that he wasn't getting rid of them.

' _I don't want to make this harder on you guys.'_

"Danny." She sighed to herself and rubbed her head, _'This isn't going to be harder on us. You don't have to worry about that. This will actually make it better on all of us;_ including you _. I'm not saying you have to talk tonight or tomorrow or next week But when you're ready though, we're all here, okay?'_

' _Thank you.'_ Danny finally sighed through to her after a minute or so of silence. _'We'll talk to tomorrow? About what's going on?'_

' _Yeah.'_ She tried to reign in her nervousness that suddenly shot through her because she wasn't sure why she was nervous. Danny had even said that he didn't want to get rid of the link. There was no reason for her to start freaking out. Not that she was freaking out, she was just unsure what having the link back meant for them both.

' _Goodnight.'_

' _Night.'_ She matched the same softness in his voice.

She laid back down in her bed focusing on trying to build a wall to help make it easier to pull away from Danny's mind. She remembered when she was little and they had first had the link she had been obsessed with Greek mythology – she still was – but she particularly liked to read the story of Troy. And she had imagined the way best way to build a wall in her mind was to imagine a real one; and it had worked.

Now she just had to focus on doing it again. Because as much as she loved having Danny's touch inside her own mind, now that she knew that he could hear her to she knew that without having some sort of wall up they would just be trampling over each other's thoughts.

She hoped that this time around they could have a better understanding of the link and though Danny said that he didn't want to get rid of the link didn't mean that he wouldn't try. And that truly terrified her.

 **September 24** **th** **, 2014**

 **Wednesday**

 **Sam's bedroom**

 **3:20 a.m.**

* * *

 **Authors note: Reason for posting late**

I'm so sorry for posting so late! Last weekend was my birthday weekend and I turned 21! So of course everyone was taking me out and what not and I didn't have time to go over this chapter. Sunday hit and then I was reading over it that night (I didn't go out because I had to drive two hours back to Mizzou in the morning) and there was just something I knew that was missing. And then this chapter was written.

Honestly it's not one of my favorite pieces ever written. Like I wrote this think over 4 times and this was the end result but it wouldn't leave me alone. It kind of just wrote itself. But we do have some good TuckerxSam and DxS going on.

 *****Important!**

I will not be posting this Sunday **January 24** **th** **, 2016.** I will be posting the following Sunday **January 31** **st** **, 2016**. The reason for this is because my second semester just started on Tuesday and it's hitting me hard since I'm not double majoring and I'm a junior and I really need to get my GPA up to a 3.2 if I want to apply for Study Abroad in Germany. I'm taking the next week to get back into my rhythm and then I will be back to posting every Sunday. Thank you so much for understanding! Cause college isn't like high school, this actually counts in life and if I don't do well I might not even get to go to graduate school which I really need to do too.

* * *

Thank You to all of my reviewers!I love you guys so much! **FandomsAndBandMemes, Danny Phantom Overlord, Blue11msu, SamXDanny, Arialinax921, Lilith Jae, ShinyMudipGal, ShadowDragon357, Rocky Rooster, Arrowkid21, Guest, Savirox, Great, Capitolblonde, , CaptainDorito**

 ***Answers to reviews:**

 **Blue11msu:** Yeah I'm with you on the whole link thing through a Fenton Product instead of magical forces. It just makes it flow better with canon. And YES we will meet Jazz's BF but not for a long time.

 **SamXDanny:** ;) the future is never as it seems LOL Yes I love DxS smut so much, too! I love reading your reviews like no joke! They always make my day whenever I read them no matter what you say :) thanks for being so on board with this story :)

 **Arialinax921:** So happy to have you a part of the Phandom now! We have so many things going on with us it's not even funny! Check out the DP tag on Tumblr it's definitely still active and full of amazing stuff!

 **ShadowDragon357:** Yeah I'm going to have them take it slow no worries there. But also right now they're in the honeymoon stage and I've been there myself and I'm a person that likes to take it extremely slow and let me tell you that stage gets tricky at times lol. But they won't be having sex for a while. Probably should have mentioned earlier, I HAVE written sex scenes LOL and I love those three authors that you listed because I've read all of their stuff too! :) the scenes I've posted was on fictionpress instead of here. Hahahahaha nectar and juices. *wipes away tear* oh god don't you just hate that when people write that? God, it's so bad. Thank you so much for your concern, it's really appreciated and I love knowing that you guys care so much :) I checked out FakeoutMakeout and I'm definitely going to use both when I post DP stuff on tumblr now seeing how it's pretty popular at the moment. Loved your second review, was making me chuckle.

AND I'M TOTALLY UP FOR DISCUSSING DXS NSFW HEAD CANONS! Sorry excited lol

 **Rocky Rooster:** revelation fics are pretty awesome and I'm slightly heading in that direction at the moment. But there's going to be a shit ton of twists and turns before it's really revealed. And you'll never see it coming! *Evil laughter* The Fenton parents are a bit hard for me to write for this story, but the reason for them being absent a lot will be coming up soon (like 4-7 chapters. Maybe).

 **Savirox:** The reason they couldn't hear the other was more of the focus on their own sides. Because they really didn't want the other to hear them which acted like a wall and their focus for the other to not hear them was so high that they couldn't feel the other. I kinda said something about it in the previous chapters somewhere – crap I can't remember which one. But I was going to mention it again in the next chapter so no worries!

 **Capitolblonde:** You totally got it! Yeah I think he forgets sometimes too. You'll have to wait and see about Dani! I'm not giving anything away ;)

 **:** ifunny?! Wow had no idea my story was actually getting attention besides here and tumblr! Lol that so funny. Sorry about not being a regular poster have you said that in your review. School you know? I'm sorry that you're not a huge fan of telepathy. I know it's kinda convenient but it's a cool thing (at least to me). Just fair warning though that their telepathy is going to be a focus for a while and that it's definitely staying in the story (oops spoilers) I just know that you're concerned about it and there's no hard feelings if you don't wanna read my story anymore because of it, I totally understand :)

 **CaptainDorito:** yay! I love it when I leave you guys with questions lol! Yeah frustrating is going to be a word that's going to come up a lot concerning the link :) Don't worry it won't all be sunshine and rainbows cuz that never makes a good long story hahahaha thanks for sticking with this story!


	20. Forgotten Touch

Thank you guys so much for your reviews and being so understanding about this! I'm still not quite in the swing of things but hopefully everything will get better either this next week or the week after. Thankfully I was able to get this chapter out throughout this week but I didn't get as much out of it as what I really wanted. But that's what the next chapter is for! Lol. Anyway I kind of wanted to end this chapter differently and a few days later than the day that it did end on but I really didn't have time to type it up yet, So I guess you'll have to wait another chapter for the **BIG SURPRISE!** *Cue evil laughter*

Thank you so much for my reviewers for being so understanding and I love that you actually did like the last chapter! It means so much to me! I love you all so much :) **SamxDanny, Great, ShinyMudkipGal, CaptainDorito, SadowDragon357, Lmb111514, Savirox, Rocky Rooster and Capitolblonde**

 *****Answers to reviews at bottom:** **CaptainDorito, ShadowDragon357** , & **Lmb111514**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, The lyrics from the song The Good, the Bad and the Dirty by Panic! At the Disco or How To Train Your Dragon 2 or the series.**

* * *

 **If you wanna start a fight**

 **You better throw the first punch**

 **Make it a good one**

 **/**

 **And you been gone so long**

 **I forgot what you feel like**

 **But I'm not gonna think about that right now**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Forgotten Touch**

 **Word count: 6,733**

 **1/31/16**

* * *

 **September 25** **th** **, 2014**

 **Thursday**

 **Sam's car**

 **3:30 p.m.**

"It's back!"

Sam pursed her lips in annoyance as Danny rolled his eyes. They had tried to keep it to themselves all day knowing it would be better to talk about it after school than during. But it had been extremely hard to hide it once they fully let the link flow. Tucker knew that there was something up throughout the whole day and had tried to get it out of them but they wouldn't budge. Except when they got in the car to head home.

"I knew there was something up today! You guys have been acting so weird. But I was _not_ expecting this! No way! So what happened? When did it happen? Last night? This morning? Why did it even come back in the first place?"

"Last week Saturday on our first date."

"And you kept it from me for this long?! Not cool guys… seriously not cool!"

"Well, we really didn't know that we had it." Danny rubbed the back of his neck.

"Uh… what?"

"I could hear Danny but he wasn't able to feel me inside his head. And vice versa." Sam answered him.

"But how can that be? I mean you're hearing each other's thoughts and the feelings are back too, right? So how can you not know that you're in each other's heads?" Tucker leaned forward in his seat and rubbed his temples.

"We think… er well… _I_ thought that it was because we didn't want to tell the other about the link and that focus… that incredibly focused point made it possible to not let either of us realize that we were in each other's heads. Or that there was a wall there not letting either of us into the area that would tell us that the other had the link." Sam said.

"So you actually blocked each other inside your own minds?"

"No, I was blocking myself when I was in Danny's mind so he didn't know I was there. And the same way with him."

"Damn. My head hurts now." Tucker groaned again as he rubbed his temples. "But I guess it makes sense even though I've never been able to read minds."

"Yeah, we really aren't able to explain it very well." Danny said as Sam pulled into her garage next to her mother's Mercedes. "We still barely understand it, even after all these years."

They got out of the car and made their way to the kitchen to grab a snack before they would decide whether to go down to the basement or up to Sam's room.

"Are you guys…" Tucker paused unsure if bringing it up now would be okay, but he needed to know where they stood now to figure out who to help. "Are you going to get rid of it again?"

"No."

"I don't know."

Sam turned abruptly from where she was grabbing a pear from the fruit bowl on the counter and spoke with venom in her voice, "You didn't say that last night."

"Just because I said I didn't _want to_ doesn't mean we _shouldn't_." He looked up at her and Tucker felt his nerves go on end where he stood at the counter making a sandwich with turkey that Ida had made sure to put on the grocery list for him and Danny. He wasn't prepared for this argument again. He remembered it from when they were younger and it first happened, but now he figured it was going to be worse considering they were all older and Danny and Sam had just become an official couple.

"Don't give me that." Danny growled and pulled Tucker from his nervous thoughts and realized that they had both stopped talking and weren't looking away from the other. He figured Sam had something in their minds for Danny to respond like that.

"Okay, this is weird. Definitely going to take time to get used to this again. And you guys need to cool it." He turned his full attention to Danny leaving the food alone and asked, "Why do you want to get rid of it?"

He never took his eyes from Sam's, but folded his arms across his chest defensively. "I don't _want to_ …"

"Okay, then why _should_ you?"

It took him a second before he turned his gaze from Sam to him and Tucker was glad he did as the next words fell from his lips, "She's going to get hurt." Tucker instantly turned to Sam and told her to wait for him to get it all out and then she could say her opinion. She wasn't too happy about it but obliged knowing that if Tucker was acting as mediator for them then she needed to listen otherwise he'd put them in separate rooms.

"Go on." Tucker urged, turning back to Danny when he was sure Sam would keep her mouth shut.

"Look, so much has happened since we cut it off. My powers, the fights, the nightmares. I already have to deal with them and keeping this link means feeling my pain or experiencing my nightmares and I don't want to pull her into that again. It's not like when we were younger, our lives, my life is too dangerous for her to have to deal with not only her problems but mine.

Tucker heard Sam mutter "idiot" under her breath and shot her a look that had her snapping her mouth closed.

Danny stayed focused on Tucker though because if he started talking _to_ Sam he would never be able to get everything out. And he needed to because throughout the entire day she wouldn't hear his side of things. Now was his time.

"And yeah it's different when she's not in my head experiencing these things, but being there will hurt her more than be beneficial. And if we cut the link again I won't have to worry about hurting her. And well," A light blush covered his cheeks and he rubbed the back of his neck averting his blue eyes from Tucker's green ones to look at the kitchen tile. "I mean, I'm a _guy_ and well we just started our relationship and well, I don't want that embarrassment or for her to get pissed off because I couldn't control my thoughts."

Sam rolled her eyes and brushed past them both and made her way out of the kitchen. Danny looked back up at Tucker with wide eyes and he could only shrug in response.

"You idiots coming or what?"

They scrambled to put away the food Tucker still had out before grabbing the plate with two turkey sandwiches on it and followed her path up the stairs to her room. Upon entering they dropped their book-bags on the floor as she locked her door.

She turned towards them both with narrowed eyes, mouth set to the side and a hand on her hip; a look they both knew too well: _'I'm going to talk and you're going to listen because I'm right'._

"Were you done?" Danny gave her a tentative nod and both boys found themselves seated in her reading chairs, the sandwiches forgotten on the table between them. "Good." She took a deep breath and they knew this wasn't going to be good at all.

"First of all about your inappropriate thoughts? Yeah, like my mind isn't just as bad." She rolled her eyes, "I don't know where this notion came from that girls don't have just as dirty of thoughts as guys. We can just hide it easier. And if it gets so bad we can build walls to keep certain things away from the other or have you forgotten that? Sure we'll have those quick thoughts that appear but I'll only know if I'm listening in, anyway." Her voice cut through the air like ice and she folded her arms under her chest, beginning to pace in front of them.

"We also have to focus on the good things about this. Say another incident like the GIW recapturing you, happens? I'll be able to find you if you know where you are, or look through your memories to find you instead of running around like chickens with our heads cut off. And we can block that physical side of our link. I started to when we were younger but then we cut it. Now we'll both have to work hard to be able to keep it up but I know we can do it. And it'll become easier after a while."

Danny opened his mouth to speak but Tucker threw up a hand to stop him as Sam shot him a glare as well.

"We can make it stick better. And the nightmares? I have horrible ones too but I'm not worried that I'll make them your problem because both of you are already helping me through them. It's what we do for the other. And if you're in my mind and experience one with me you might be able to help me embrace it better. Which is the same thing I can do for you.

"I just miss having this and you said you did too but all you focus on is the bad that could happen when you need to look at all the good things that the link brings us too." She stopped in her pacing to face them both, but her eyes locked with Danny's, "I miss having you up here Danny, and if we get rid of it again because you think this is what's best I will never forgive you for it for the rest of my life. I could probably live through cutting it again but this time there's no coming back from it."

Danny's eyes hardened, "Are you giving me an ultimatum?"

Sam mulled over her words then nodded, "Yes." Danny sighed and hung his head over his knees, threading his fingers through his hair.

Tucker figured it was now or never to jump in, "Look guys, Sam had made some good points. Though I don't exactly agree with the ultimatum, you both can work through it again and I'm always going to be here to make sure you don't get pulled completely in like last time. I'll be your moral support or someone to rant to like always, this doesn't change that fact. But Sam you need to realize that Danny made some good points as well and you need to really think on them before completely shutting him down."

Sam groaned in annoyance and threw her arms open wide, "I _have_ thought over everything he's said and he's being an idiot." She pointed at Danny before popping her hands onto her hips.

"If I'm being such an idiot about this then why didn't I just cut the link before, so you didn't have to hear my stupid thoughts of keeping you and Tucker and everyone safe?"

"What! Where is that even coming from?"

Tucker rubbed his temples, he really hated when _mom_ and _dad_ fought.

"It's different this time, Danny. Can't you feel that?" Her voice dropped to a softer tone startling both boys but Danny kept on his point.

"You're being unreasonable and your need for this to stay is completely overpowering your top-notch deductive and reasoning skills."

Tucker glanced over at Sam to see her hands curl into fists and her jaw set tight, "Guys, come on, calm down." He tried to say wanting them to not jeopardize anything. "Take a deep breath and step away from the other for a moment." But they disregarded his statement by throwing him two identical glares.

Sam felt so angry that she started to think the idea of slapping some sense into Danny was better and better. "I have thought about this and I don't care, Danny. I don't care about any of that I just want to feel your touch inside my mind again, don't you miss that? Don't answer that because I know you do. Everything else we can deal with."

"You won't if I die."

Sam and Tucker both gasped at the unexpected response, "Don't say that." They both growled out. Of course Tucker and Sam had thought and talked about what would happen when Danny would finally die but it was something of a taboo subject between them. They knew it could/would happen soon – to either of them – but it didn't make talking about it any easier.

Danny looked back and forth between them, "But it's true. Any day I could die. _Really_ die and I am not putting you through that." He stayed focused on Sam, but laid a hand on Tucker's forearm that rested on the chair's arm. "Both of you would have the worst time trying to cope. And if you have our link I am not going to put you through more pain because you don't deserve that. I don't want to be the reason your mind breaks."

And the true reason for Danny being so worried was finally out. Tucker could see what he meant. He remembered how depressed they were - that wasn't the best term more like despondent. They had been despondent, both of them, when they had finally cut the link when they were younger. It took a while before they were both more like themselves and he shuddered at the thought of Danny dying or Sam dying and either of them feeling the other's mind dissipate.

"What if we were switched?" Sam's voice was low again as if all the anger had flowed out of her. "If it were me that could die at any given point of the day or any day of the week and you were the one watching out for my back day in and day out, would you want to not have the opportunity to have this again?"

"I know what you're doing." He let his head fall back to his knees, threading his fingers back through his dark hair.

"You should give it a shot." Tucker had made up his mind with apparently one thought that neither of them had seemed to realize or rather, bring up. "What if the link was never really cut in the first place? If it returned once it will probably return again."

They both looked at him in stunned silence and he knew that he had just made the winning statement for them to not even try to cut the link. He smirked in confidence and grabbed the sandwich from the plate that sat on the table between him and Danny and took a bite.

"I hadn't thought of that." Danny murmured aloud.

"Me either." Sam said from her still standing position. She looked up from the floor to lock eyes with Danny.

When Tucker realized that they weren't speaking aloud anymore he got up from his seat to give them privacy deciding it was best to work on homework at Sam's desk.

' _Could you just for one second stop thinking about what you_ should _do? That's all you've had to think about for these past three years. What is it that you_ want _, Danny?'_

' _We're not in the Notebook, Sam.'_

She rolled her eyes at the same time he did, _'No, but they do make a good point. And you're not exactly hiding your feelings about what you want but I want you to admit it to yourself.'_

He mentally sighed, which sounded funny in Sam's head considering it was as if a breeze had fluttered at the front of her mind. _'I want to keep it. I know that there's something different this time around, I just can't quite figure out what though. And I love knowing that you're here all the time and I don't have to worry about you. I've missed having you up here too. As much as you have.'_

Danny could feel Sam's happiness and practical giddiness over what he said and the feelings he allowed to be brought up as he said them. But he also made sure that she felt his worry and concern about keeping the link. _'But we have to at least_ try _and cut it again. We can't keep it; it won't be good for you in the end.'_

Sam's stance turned offensive but kept her tone in her mind soft. _'I understand why you're concerned. I really, truly do. But I am willing to go through all of that to keep the connection. If our placements were switched what would you do?'_ She knew that she had already asked him this but this time she really wanted an answer.

' _I would be pushing for it just as hard as you are. But it's not like that.'_ His brows furrowed, _'If I were to die we don't know what might happen to your mind. What if it ends up killing you as well?'_

' _This is going to sound really mushy and very unlike me but I really don't care because I'm trying to get my point across. I would rather take this risk and deal with the consequences because_ I love you _and though I might be able to live without the link I know that we won't be able to recover as easily as we did last time. And that's_ if _we can cut the link. Why try and rid ourselves of it when it popped up again when we just got together. I know you don't believe in magic and myth and what-not in this realm, but I believe Fate can intervene at opportune times and it wouldn't have comeback unless the link was important to our lives.'_

She could tell she was wearing him down little by little as she heard snippets of quick thoughts running through his mind leaning more towards her side of the argument. _'I love you Danny and apparently the link opened back up because of that. Why else would it reappear on our first date? What other reasoning do we have except for the fact that after five years of having no link it comes back when our feelings and connections were at its strongest?'_

His mind was bouncing back and forth between his arguments and hers and Sam didn't say anymore knowing that she had said all she could. He sighed aloud and ran a hand through his hair, closing his eyes and slowing reopening them, settling on a decision. _'The first instance that something goes horribly wrong, we try and cut it.'_

Sam's grin nearly split her face and she surged forward, wrapping her arms around Danny's neck and kissing him. _'Thank you.'_ She voiced through their link and Danny chuckled as she kept thinking it and kissing him. He moved his hands to rest on her waist and kissed her back.

Tucker looked over as he caught Sam's movement from the corner of his eye and realized that they must have agreed to keep the link going considering they were making out. He waited a few more seconds but when they didn't stop he looked away not really wanting to see them continue.

Danny pulled back slightly from the kiss, opened his eyes and spoke lowly in their minds _, 'I'm still not happy about this, but typically your ideas turn out okay in the end.'_

Sam raised her brows at him, but her smile stayed rooted to her face, _'Oh,_ now _you admit it.'_

He raised a finger, _'I said they turn_ out _okay, not that the process getting there was easy.'_

' _At least you know I make you life interesting.'_ She chuckled and leaned down to kiss him again, moving her lips slowly against his. _'I'm sorry that I yelled at you. Not the words I said, but I shouldn't have let my temper get to me like that.'_

' _Me too.'_ He reached up to cup Sam's cheek as they continued to kiss despite their conversation in their heads. _'Did you really mean what you said about the ultimatum?'_

She pulled away a bit, her eyes stayed closed and nodded, _'Yes.'_

Danny sighed and rested his forehead against hers keeping his eyes closed as well, _'Okay. We survived our first fight as a couple.'_

Sam opened her eyes narrowing them at him, feeling her eyes on him Danny opened his blue ones to be almost swallowed by her lilac ones. _'Aren't we technically still fighting?'_

' _Sort of.'_ He shrugged, _'but we know where we stand and we compromised so technically we survived our first big fight.'_

' _Damn. And in the first week of our relationship too. Is that good or bad?'_

' _Guess we'll find out.'_

Sam laughed aloud at that and began kissing him again, moving more onto his lap to make it easier. They didn't get far when Tucker interrupted them.

"Okay, we we're good before but now I _really_ don't want to hear it." They both laugh and pull away completely from the other. "So I guess you decided on what to do?"

"Yeah," Danny said and got up from the chair to grab his backpack. "We'll keep it up but if the first sign that something goes wrong we're going to try and cut it."

"I guess that's all you can do."

Sam smirked and grabbed her bag as well, pulling out the assignment for their English class that he was working on. "We'll see. Now, how far did you get on this?"

* * *

 **September 26** **th** **, 2014**

 **Friday**

 **Fenton Household - Kitchen**

 **6:10 p.m.**

It was the end of the first week and Tucker and Danny were already so sick of doing the popular's work. But Dash and Kwan and most of the football team had stopped teaming up on other geeks and dorks so they knew that toughing it out another week would benefit the other's being bullied so they didn't try to get out of it. Though Danny and Tucker were both trying to come up with a prank to pull on Dash, Kwan, Paulina and Star in retaliation.

"What if you boys glued all their bottles of shampoo shut?" Jack suggested.

"No, that's not really on par with their type of cruelty." Danny said.

Danny had made dinner for everyone and were currently sitting around the Fenton's kitchen table eating and trying to figure out pranks to pull on the four popular's.

"You know if you're really going to try and get the girls you could rub poison ivy on their cars. It works for the guys as well, but it's typically worse for the girls." Maddie said.

The trio looked on at her in shock. They hadn't expected that. She looked up from her food to see them staring at her and shrugged, "What? Me and Alicia could pull pranks out left and right."

"I like that one." Sam pursed her lips and nodded. "Simple yet effective."

"Or you could put baby powder inside their blow dryers." Maddie suggested as well.

"That one!" Tucker agreed immediately. "They love their hair too much!"

"Yeah and then when we get to school we can let the air out of their car's tires." Danny smirked liking that idea. It was simple and everyone would see it and humiliate them because who would think to get back at Dash Baxter?

"As long as you don't get caught." Jack advised.

"That's right we don't need to hear that you kids received another detention." Maddie gave Danny a pointed look but he ignored it.

"So what do you guys think about going to the mini-golf course?" Danny suggested getting up and placing his and Sam's – who was done with her food as well – plates into the sink.

Sam threw him a look over her shoulder as she said _'To the one that you_ didn't _destroy?'_

Danny rolled his eyes and flicked soapy water at her, _'Yes. That one.'_

Jack and Maddie watched them in confusion but figured the look that Sam sent Danny was one that needed retaliation and didn't comment.

"I'm going to pass on this one. I've got something back at home that I really wanna work on." Tucker told them around a mouth full of food.

"You sure you just don't want me to kick your butt again?" Sam laughed when he narrowed his eyes at her.

"As I recall I beat _you_ the last time."

"Okay wait a second, I beat both of you!" Danny closed the dishwasher from where he placed his and Sam's plates and returned to his seat between Tucker and Sam.

Sam and Tucker smirked at the other and Danny's smile slid off his face looking between them both. "Yeah Danny you keep believing that." Tucker pointed his fork at him before picking up the last of his potatoes with his fork and putting them in his mouth.

Sam patted his right hand that rested on the table, "Whatever you need to believe to let you sleep at night."

"You guys are cruel." He pouted crossing his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair.

"Cruel is a matter of perspective." Tucker said and got up himself to wash off his plate and put it in the dishwasher.

"Don't Jack Sparrow me." Danny rolled his eyes.

"You wanna go now or…" Sam asked but Danny answered _'yes'_ in her mind and she stood up from her chair. "See you later Mr. and Mrs. F." Sam said more out of courtesy than the fact that she wanted to.

"Can you drop me off at my house?" Tucker asked following them out of the kitchen.

"Duh." Danny answered for Sam. That pulled him up short and looked to Sam, "Sorry, I didn't mean to do that."

Tucker groaned as he and Sam grabbed their bags from the living room. "It's starting."

Danny and Sam only laughed in response and headed out the front door, not minding to lock it behind them.

When they pulled up to Tucker's home they asked him if he was sure that he didn't want to come along.

"Yeah, I'm going to get started on this idea I had. Don't worry about me and go have fun. But don't get too rowdy! No sex before the 10th date!" he laughed and escaped from the car before Sam or Danny could smack him.

"Oh he's going to pay for that." Sam muttered before driving off and made their way to the only other putt-putt golf course in Amity Park.

"I'm sure we'll hear worse eventually." Danny shrugged.

"True. Doesn't make it any less annoying." She grumbled, though she wasn't really annoyed with him that much, he was just being Tucker.

"At least we know what to expect." He chuckled. The rest of the ride was quiet until they pulled into the parking lot.

"Do you think that Tucker feels like we're going to third wheel him so he's opting not to come along for that reason?" Sam asked worriedly, as they got out of the car.

"No." Danny shook his head as he closed his own door and began to walk towards the stand to pay. "I mean, Tucker likes his projects, you know that. I just want to know what he's working on, though."

"Exactly! Usually he babbles on and on about it, which is why I don't think he really had something to work on. I've already talked to him to tell us if we accidentally third wheel him or something…"

"Yeah, you told me."

"But what if he doesn't take it seriously? You know how he gets sometimes." She sighed and pulled out her wallet from her small black purse.

"Wait a second, I was going to pay." Danny protested as the couple in front of them moved on and they were next.

"How many clubs?" Asked the teen, someone they recognized from the halls of Casper High but didn't know their name.

"Two." Danny answered and he pulled out two clubs. "Why won't you let me pay?"

Sam rolled her eyes, "Because we live in the 21st Century and plus you need to save all the money you can to help Jazz." She pointed out and handed the teen behind the counter her debit card.

At the mention of Jazz's names Danny picked up snippets of her thoughts: Her and Jazz hugging, asking her grandma for money to help Jazz get started, drawings and paintings she's done, A woman wearing a powder blue suit going over details on art showings. He pulled away from her mind and gasped.

"You have an Art Agent?"

"Come on." She rolled her eyes, grabbed their clubs and two balls from the rack and made her way towards the first hole, leaving a confused teen at the stand.

"Why didn't you tell me you were selling your drawings?" He asked as she handed him a club and a yellow golf ball.

"I didn't want to say anything until I was certain that I would be getting a good hunk of change to help Jazz out." She told him after placing her purple golf ball down on the black starting pad. "And anyway I haven't even done any shows or anything, so it's not something to get worked up over just yet." She hit her golf ball sending it across the green and the bend of the rock structure that stood over the course creating a waterfall to the side of them as the water flowed into a pool.

"But you have an agent right?" he asked as she turned away from the course to look at him.

"Yeah, she actually has me appearing in a gallery show in Springfield on October 11th."

"That's great!" He exclaimed happily instantly wrapping her in a hug. "The 11th of October? I'm going to have to make a note so I don't forget and we have to tell Tucker. And Jazz! She'll want to come up so she can go with us."

Sam looked behind him to see a small group of friends waiting expectantly. She pulled away from the hug and told him to hit his ball. He did as he was told and they moved on to their next position.

"And we're not talking about me right now. We're talking about Tucker." She sunk her ball and waited for Danny.

"Right," He aimed and missed the hole. "Tucker will tell us if we end up secluding him. He's not one to keep his opinions to himself." He finally sunk his golf ball and they moved onto the second hole.

She knew he was right, what she was nervous about wasn't quite the fact that Tucker wouldn't tell them if they alienated him, but the fact that they _could_ do that. Considering how her parents were always so vacant with her she always tried to make sure everyone either knew she was there or didn't purposefully, or tried not to accidentally ignore someone she was close to, or knew fairly well. And Tucker being one of her best friends it made those fears sky rocket to new heights.

' _It'll be fine, Sam.'_ Danny reassured her in her mind. She figured she'd been pressing on to him her worries. "It'll be okay. I Promise." He smiled and reached out for her hand giving it a quick reassuring squeeze.

She took in his reassurance and positive thoughts, letting them flow through her and gave him a small smile. "Okay." She released his hand and lined up her putt. "Now, are you ready to _lose_ at mini-golf?"

Danny shook his head, but a smile stayed on his face, "I don't think I'll be the one losing, Sammy." He laughed when she smacked him lightly on his upper arm.

"You're going to eat your words."

And eat them he did.

"I don't even understand how you can be so bad at miniature golf and regular golf." Sam said for the nth time since they left the putt-putt course. They were now standing around a pool table at Hotshots – a Sports Bar & Grill – waiting for their drinks, Sam's house salad and his traditional boneless chicken wings.

"Well, honestly, I don't know either." He shrugged as he lifted the ball rack from the set of billiard balls and placed it back on its spot on the side of the table.

"Considering how well your aim is, you would think that you could have done better than 47. I mean it's not your worst, but I was expecting you to be getting _better_ at it." She smirked at him before leaning over and breaking.

"Sorry, we can't all hit a 26." Danny joked, though he was wondering why he sucked so bad at mini-golf.

"I guess that just means I'm a better shooter than you." She smirked after hitting another striped ball into the pocket.

"I beg to differ. I'll beat you any day of the week."

"Wager on this game then?" She asked as she stepped away to give Danny his turn as she hadn't been able to get another striped ball into a pocket. "Whoever wins this game is the better shooter?"

They both knew it obviously didn't work that way but it was fun all the same. "Yeah." Danny smirked, "I'll win this game and the title of 'best shooter' goes to me."

"You seem pretty confident there." She smiled devilishly at him as he missed his pocket.

"I've got a few tricks up my sleeves." He locked eyes with her but made sure to block her from tying to seek any thoughts on those tricks.

Of course though, their fun didn't last very long as their game was interrupted by Danny's ghost sense going off.

"No, stay here. Just in case we need crowd control or something." He told her, hearing her question before she could voice it.

"Okay." She nodded and he made his way to the bathroom, quickly changing and flying out through the roof. He was surprised to see Chaser flying haphazardly down the street with two GIW agents trailing after him. He sighed heavily before flying to the car and grabbed the thermos he forgot to bring in with them and went after Chaser to make sure the Guys in White didn't get him.

"I wasn't expecting to see any dirty cops today. But I guess change is an inevitable part of life." Danny said as he flew up next to one of the Agents giving him a two finger salute before flying back off to the side to avoid being shot.

"Oh come on, is that anyway to treat an old friend? Well, Friend doesn't really fit into this category. I guess I can put our relationship status under _complicated_ on Facebook instead."

He was shocked though as the Agent he was talking to yelled over the wind to his partner, "The bait has worked, Focus on capturing Phantom."

He stopped flying instantly, letting them keeping going ahead of him on their four-wheeler type vehicles. "Crap." They instantly turned around and faced him, gunning it back in his direction.

He turned and flew as fast as he could back to Hotshots, fear bubbling up in his chest. He wanted to chide himself for the fear but figured it would better to do that later when he wasn't the focus of being recaptured. _'Sam!'_ He called in his head. _'Meet me in the car!'_

' _What's wrong?'_

He could hear the worry behind her words but he couldn't focus on giving her a complete sentence as he had to begin to dodge blasts that were sent his way. He used his right had to aim a shot at their tires on the vehicle but they both swerved to miss, not stopping in their shootings. One lucky hit got him in the leg but he kept going until he was able to turn invisible as he arrived in the parking lot of Hotshots. He flew straight into the backseat of Sam's Honda and changed back, and ducked down to make sure they didn't see him. He realized that Sam must have heard enough of his thoughts while he tried to slow them down because he saw her through the windshield exit Hotshots as soon as the GIW pulled up.

"Ma'am have you seen Phantom anywhere near here?" he heard the Agent who said that Chaser had been 'bait' ask her though the partially rolled down windows. He could just see the other Agent from his awkward position in the backseat. He had pulled out what Danny assumed to be a tracking device and moved through the cars.

"Uh, no. And if I _did_ ," He saw her narrow her eyes. "I wouldn't be telling the likes of _you_." She moved past him and unlocked the car as Danny chided her in their minds.

The Agent that asked her about him stood on the sidewalk, watching her as she got in the car; not looking behind her to make-sure Danny was still there (because she already knew he was) and backed out of the parking spot. Then the Agent moved on to the next person that came out of the Bar & Grill.

They pulled up to a stoplight two streets down and Sam said, "We're clear."

"Good, because I need to find Chaser." He popped up and changed back ignoring the ache in his calf where he'd been shot with an ecto-ray.

"What? Danny, Chaser can handle himself."

"Doesn't mean I don't need to go get him and shove him as far as I can into the Ghost Zone. I feel like he's going to become like the Box Ghost." He grumbled.

"But they said they used him as bait to get you. And how'd they know that you'd be on this side of town? Typically we're by the school or the Park. If they were baiting you wouldn't they have done it there?"

"Then that means they had Chaser and were using him to track me." He locked eyes with her as she turned around to look at him instead of doing so in the review mirror.

"Fine. Go capture the loser ghost." A car honked behind her and she realized that the light had turned green. "I'll find a place to park." She moved the car further down the street looking for a good place to pull off into as Danny turned invisible and floated through her roof. She secretly hoped he'd shake the thermos when Chaser was in it.

After that entire fiasco and Danny returned with Chaser secure in the thermos, they decided it might just be better to go back to one of their houses and chill out. They decided on Sam's because she'd gotten four new movies two months before their release date and Danny really wanted to watch, How to Train Your Dragon 2.

They left Chaser in the thermos in Sam's backpack, deciding to question him later on what had happened with the GIW. They laid themselves out on Sam's couch in her theater room after putting on How to Train Your Dragon 2. Danny was laid out on his back and Sam was situated on top of him on her stomach; head resting on his chest. Their hands were intertwined by his head, the other wrapped around her back. The ache in his leg finally gone making their calm positions more comfortable and he realized how tired he was.

' _I could sleep for days.'_ She told him telepathically, too tired to open her mouth and speak the words aloud.

' _Me too. But I really wanna watch this movie.'_ Which wasn't a lie, he loved the 'How to Train Your Dragon' series.

' _Good thing I own it, then. You can watch it whenever you want.'_ She shifted on his chest and closed her eyes. It had been too long of a week and a day.

' _That's true.'_ He sighed and began to twirl circles on her back with his index finger. _'This is kind of nice.'_

' _Mhmm. You haven't felt this calm in a while.'_

' _You either.'_

' _You can be very soothing.'_

Danny didn't respond, knowing she was going to be asleep in a few seconds. He continued his patterned circle on her back as her breathing evened out. It didn't take him long before he was seeing the back of eyelids and following Sam into dreamland.

 **September 26** **th** **, 2014**

 **Friday**

 **Manson Mansion – Theater**

 **8:40 p.m.**

* * *

As you can tell Danny didn't bring up his nightmare or rather flashback nightmare from the last chapter. But being Danny it's going to take him a few days before he really confides in the fact that he needs help in overcoming what happened to him. Just be happy Sam had enough restraint on her temper to not bring it up any more than the little sentence she did say.

Hope you liked this chapter even though it ended where it did. Next chapter you better be prepared! People always say, that there's calm before a storm ;)

I would love to see **7 reviews** again! You guys always make my day when I read your reviews. Keeps a good motivation going for this story :)

Like I said above, I'm still not quite in a routine yet for school but I'm getting there. I will be posting a chapter next week Sunday, that is a given. **What I need to hear from you in your reviews** is if you want me to still post my reasoning's for why I chose certain lyrics in the last ten chapters? I was going to put it in this chapter but ran out of time. Stupid time. I need Clockwork to freeze it for me so I can get my shit together. Let me know if you want me to! It's actually quite fun if you ask me :)

 *****Answers to reviews at bottom:**

 **CaptainDorito:** Yeah I wasn't sure how I was going to play the dream sequence out at first but I'm happy with the way it ended and it'll help later down the road with this story. We're still sitting in the honeymoon stage and all (God they're just both so freaking cute! Lol). Yeah, your right, Danny can only hold out so long. Which is stupid that he does because he knows that Sam and Tucker and Jazz aren't going to judge him on those kinds of things. But that's who Danny is :( Yeah, 21 is kind of exciting but now that the day is over, it all seems pretty normal now. Except that I can go and buy my own alcohol LOL!

 **ShadowDragon357:** I am so sorry about not emailing you back! I swear I'm working on doing that after I post this chapter! I have so many things I want to say on what you sent me and I just haven't had the time to sit down and focus on all that smut! Lol ;) I'm happy that you liked the last chapter, I'm still having them in the honeymoon phase but that's going to be ending pretty quickly. *Evil laughter* God I love hurting my babies too much! lol

 **Lmb111514:** Thank you so much for everything you said! It seriously made my day! To be compared to the show like that? That is such an honor :) I think you're the second person to tell me that and I seriously couldn't stop smiling after reading what you wrote. And yeah, Danny's pretty distant from Maddie and Jack but that's because I'm trying to put a more real world spin on the show. And the show was represented to consider that family is incredibly important. Which it still is in my story! That's one of Danny's big things, but I believe that he has focused on making his own family with Sam, Tuck, Jazz and Dani. That Maddie and Jack are kind of just in the background going 'we still love you' and Danny going 'But not all of me'. Anyway, yes you're right that the GIW only see him as a blob of ectoplasm and since they think he's going to be 'king' then he knows everything. Anyway, I'm so happy that you're on board with this story and It's so nice to have another passenger! Hope you liked this chapter, because you know what they say, the calm always comes before the storm. ;) (yes I know I repeated what I said in my authors note, but I wrote it here first and I liked it too much to not put up there in the note lol).


	21. Arrangement

Sorry for posting late at night! I got sucked into the Bring It On movies on ABC Family (Freeform) today. Well actually the 1st, 3rd and 4th movies actually.

Hey guys! Thank you so much for all of your reviews from the last chapter! I have to say that I expect a huge surplus of reviews after this chapter because of the ending *evil laughter*. Don't worry though you'll see what I mean as soon as you read :) I'm so happy that everyone liked the way their argument was handled! It took me a bit to get that straightened out, but I'm so happy with the way it turned out.

I'm going to be putting in the lyrics information in on the next chapter!

Thank you to all of my great reviewers! **ShinyMudkipGal, Blue11msu, SamXDanny, ShadowDragon357, Great, Savirox, Rocky Rooster, Phatom Fire1, CaptainDorito, and Capitolblonde**

 ****Answers to reviews at bottom: Blue11msu, SamXDanny, ShadowDragon357, Savirox, Phantom Fire1, Rocky Rooster, CaptainDorito**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or the song 'Strange Love' by Halsey**

*Note: I have not gone over this chapter with a fine tooth comb yet. but everything should be fine*

* * *

 **They think I'm insane, they think my lover is strange**

 **But I don't have to fucking tell them anything, anything**

 **And I'm gonna write it all down, and I'm gonna sing it on stage**

 **But I don't have to fucking tell you anything, anything**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Arrangement**

 **Word count: 5,618**

 **2/7/16**

* * *

 **Chapter 21**

 **September 27** **th** **, 2014**

 **Saturday – Friday night**

 **The dock – warehouses**

 **12:30 a.m.**

They didn't sleep the whole night on couch. Danny was woken abruptly after the movie was long done by his ghost sense, sending a chill through his body. The first thing he noted was that his right arm that was laid by his head with Sam's fingers still intertwined with his, was numb. The second thing he noticed was that Sam was practically in a ball on top of him. Her head now rested in the space between his shoulder and neck, her warm breath flowed across the side of his neck. Her right arm was squished between his body and arm and the back of his couch, he figured that her arm was numb too.

He really didn't want to move from his position, though he wouldn't mind getting rid of the numb feeling, but besides that he was pretty comfortable, even with Sam's awkward ball position on top of him. But he knew that if he didn't investigate to find out who was wreaking havoc, it would just get worse the longer he waited.

"Sam." He whispered and shook the hand that was connected to his, but she didn't even budge. "Sam." He called again a little louder and squeezed her hand.

This time she let out a tired grunt, but nothing more. He sighed and blew his bangs out of his eyes. He knew if he moved too much she'd freak out and he'd end up getting sleep punched or something. He decided to try moving slowly thought by untwining their fingers and letting her arm fall onto the couch and then shook her shoulder hard enough to move her head a bit. "Sam." He said more firmly.

"Ngh, what?" She groaned shifting her body and her elbow went into the side of his ribs.

"Ow. It's time to go up to the _actual_ bed, now."

She moved her elbow just barely away, "Mhm. But you're so comfy." She mumbled.

"Sam, I have to go. My ghost sense went off."

She sighed and started to move up off of him, eyes still closed. "Okay, I'm up, I'm up."

Danny followed her up off the couch, but when she swayed as she stood up he quickly caught her around her waist to keep her stable.

"I'm fine. I can walk." So he let her go and let her start to stumble her way towards the stairs. He got up and followed her to make sure she was fine. After she crawled herself up onto her red comforter she cuddled up to her pillow and her breathing evened out.

"Night Sam." Even though he was leaving her he couldn't keep the smile off of his face. He phased her comforter up over her, the leaned down and kissed her forehead before changing, grabbing the thermos with Chaser inside and another empty one before flying through her window.

What he was _not_ expecting was Skulker down by the docks at the warehouses there, moving in and out between the buildings. Danny floated invisibly behind him, close enough to see what he was doing but far enough away to make sure Skulker didn't hit him. He followed him through three more building when Skulker stopped and looked at Tucker's PDA still attached to his arm. He flew down to one set of crates and blasted it open with a ghost ray. Before Skulker could reach in to grab whatever was in the crate, ignoring the lid as it hit the concrete; Danny shot him in the shoulder, finally speaking up.

"Doing another of Plasmius's errands?"

Skulker whipped around quickly, growling, "Whelp." And then fired a shot at him. Danny was quick enough to dodge because he had been expecting it from fighting him so often.

"Getting distracted there, errand boy?"

"Not quite." He growled back.

"So what are you stealing this time? Battle armor to make a new suit for your pipsqueak self?"

Skulker shot at him again, now more in anger than anything. He hated when someone brought up his size.

Danny used the attacks to get higher to see what was inside the crates to be confused as all he saw were green rock pieces that had a glow around them. He felt like he had seen them before, but he couldn't think clearly enough to figure out where.

"Go ahead and touch it, Whelp." Danny turned from the allure of the glowing green rocks to see Skulker hovering to the side of him, his mechanical arms folded over his chest and a smirk playing on his mouth.

"What is this?" He couldn't help but ask, turning back to look at what was in the crate. It felt as though it was almost luring him in.

But Skulker didn't answer him. He tried to think of where he had seen this before but the answers kept evading him. He'd know it right away if his parents had used it because he made sure to be on top of their information at all time and if Vlad was using the stuff it had to be important in the ghost community. He wondered if this was something he used to combine with ectoplasm to create his clones. But he nixed that idea as soon as he thought it because Skulker seemed very keen on having him touch it, which meant it wasn't something good.

"Weapons. It's another weapon of some sort." He turned to face Skulker and was met with a fist to the face. He fell back to the ground knocking his head against the warehouse floor. "I gotta stop forgetting that Skulker's still bad." He groaned to himself rolling out of the way of a blue containment box Skulker sent his way.

"The hunt is not upon us today, ghost child. Another day and your pelt will lie at the end of my bed – no matter what Ember says." He mumbled the last part.

"You guys are still together?" Danny quipped, "She hasn't left you because of your size yet?" he knew that was a low blow, but he needed to figure out why Vlad needed those glowing rocks and why they were considered weapons. But he knew that he couldn't let Vlad get them.

"Your quips do nothing to deter me from my job, Whelp." Skulker shot at him again and he had to duck back behind the crates he had rolled behind.

"And why does Vlad want this stuff anyway?" He shot a freeze ray at him, freezing the arm that was reaching for one of the pieces.

"A weapon is a weapon, child. And you are a hindrance." Danny was expecting to get shot at and blocked it with a quick shield when Skulker's rays blasted him. What he was not expecting was for the ray to travel through the shield and hit him square in the chest, sending him careening back to the floor and spasming as he felt himself change back to his human form.

"What?"

"Portable Plasmius Maximus." Skulker looked at the gun on his arm and admired it. "Test driving it and so far the effect is good." Skulker shot a simple ghost ray at him. Danny moved quicker than he thought he could at the moment considering his head was pounding and he was focusing hard on not letting his pain flow over to Sam. He was able to get behind a different set of crates, the ray making a burn mark on the concrete floor.

He leaned against them and searched his pockets for a weapon and cursed loudly when he realized that he didn't have one. Sam was going to kill him for that. He took a chance to look over the boxes to see what Skulker was doing: whether waiting for him or not, but he was gone.

"Crap." He groaned, seeing that the lid was back on the crate that Skulker had stolen from. He walked back over to it and the sign on top of the crate immediately caught his attention.

ECTORANIUM

PROPERTY OF THE GUYS IN WHITE

He immediately remembered why he thought he'd seen it before. A week or so ago they had discussed key ways in killing a ghost and though you would need a lot of ectoranium to kill a ghost it was extremely dangerous. There had been pictures on the PowerPoint but were of smaller pieces, not large ones like what was in the crate.

"What is Vlad planning?"

* * *

 **September 27** **th** **, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **Tucker's house – Tucker's room**

 **4:30 p.m.**

They had to wash each of Dash's, Paulina's, Kwan's and Star's cars that afternoon. Twice. Afterwards, Danny and Tucker exhaustedly made their way to Tuckers house to hang out. They were studying for their government class as they had a test on Monday and Danny really wanted to do well on the first exam since the second test was around Halloween and he knew how busy it was during that time. He probably never would get in any time to study. Sam was unable to come over and help them study because her and Ida were taking a day together.

"If Vlad is using ectoranium, stolen from the GIW, would he be trying to create better weapons to attack you with?" Tucker mused as they sat on his bed.

Their books were open, but they hadn't even started studying yet because Danny was finally able to tell him about last night's encounter with Skulker.

"I guess, but it's not like he doesn't already beat me most of the time anyway. Why would he need to make weapons with ectoranium? Unless he's going to try and sell them?"

"What about Valerie?" Tucker arched a brow at his obvious misstep of who worked for Vlad.

"Well, yeah I just assumed that he would be giving the ectoranium weapons to her, but typically he has a different game he's playing with things like this."

"True, but he usually has her test out his products first before he uses them. You could always get information out of her to figure out what Vlad is doing with it."

"Like she'll actually talk to me about it." He rolled his eyes. "That's like getting Sam to talk about sunshine and rainbows." He smirked as a thought came to him from Sam who was listening in to their conversation. "Why don't _you_ ask her?"

"Me?!" Tucker looked at him with wide eyes behind his glasses.

"Yeah, not like you guys don't talk when we're at school."

"Not for a while though!" He threw up his arms in exasperation.

"Come on, man. What happened to the confident, strapping Tucker that wasn't afraid of girls?" Danny smirked at him when Tucker reached over and punched him on the upper arm.

"You're saying I should like _seduce her_ to get her to talk. _I can't do that_!"

Danny started laughing at the pitch in Tucker's voice.

"What's so funny, clueless one?"

Danny chuckled again and shook his head, "Sam was the one who suggested it."

"Sam!" Tucker whined. Danny laughed harder when he heard Sam laugh in his head. "And I thought she was taking a day with Grandma Ida? Why is she listening in on our conversation." He pouted and folded his arms across his chest.

"She is, but she wanted to know what happened with Skulker too and apparently she's getting a massage right now so it's pretty quiet on her end." Danny answered. "And anyway, I'm sure you could get the information out of Valerie before I could."

"But doesn't she technically still like you?"

Danny ignored the growl from Sam in his head, "With the way she talks with you? Yeah, right. Speaking of which…" Danny figured now was the best time to ask him since Sam wasn't there. He told Sam he was going to block her out for something before putting up a mental wall to keep her out of his head. "I'm trying to figure out what to get Sam since were dating now."

"So you're definitely not going to use the ring?" His demeanor relaxed as the focus of him and Valerie was taken off the table for the moment.

"Yeah, it's not really who we are you know?" Danny leaned back on his hands.

"That's true." Tucker nodded in agreement, "Do you have any ideas so far?"

He sighed and reached up to rub the back of his neck. "Not really, no. I mean she doesn't really appreciate jewelry and not like that would really be all that different than the ring. But I can't really think of anything else besides getting her a bracelet or something."

"Hmm." Tucker rubbed his chin as he did when he was thinking. "What about making something?"

"But what would I make?" He groaned out, letting his hand fall back on the bed to support himself. "It's not like I'm particularly gifted in the Arts."

"What about that diamond ice thing you made when after you defeated Undergrowth for the first time?"

Danny raised a brow, "What about it?"

Tucker gave him his, 'are you serious' look. "You used your ice to make it and she really liked it. I know for a fact that she still has it in her jewelry box."

"She does?"

"Yeah." Tucker chuckled at his friends shocked face. "You could do something like what the Far Frozen does."

"I'm not asking her to marry me, Tucker." Though when he said that he did get a warm fluttering feeling in his chest.

"Okay, that's true. But you could make a necklace or something." He shrugged.

"Okay, but that still doesn't tell me what I should make her though."

"I have no idea. Just start molding things I guess." Tucker shrugged again. This was supposed to be between them and though he knew that they were doing this without the ring that they already had, he had no clue on what to do from there. He wasn't creative like Sam either.

"That'll be my best shot." Danny sighed as his eyes glowed blue along with his hand and began to mold various little things with his ice powers. "Okay, give me some test questions and I'll see what I can answer."

* * *

 **September 28** **th** **, 2014**

 **Sunday**

 **The Queen's Dragon**

 **1:00 p.m.**

The next day Danny decided that it was best to go ahead and give her what he made so he took her out to her favorite café, The Queen's Dragon. Though she was very adamant on not going because it was _his birthday_ and wanted to take him to somewhere he wanted to, but Danny liked this place as well and he already wanted to take her here in the first place. Just because it was his birthday was no reason to make a big celebration out of it. He was seventeen, nothing big happened when you turned seventeen.

"We're meeting Tucker after this you know." She told him as they took their seats outside.

"Yeah I know. And I know that you guys got tickets to go see Jazz next weekend as my present."

Sam bit her bottom lip. "You weren't supposed to find out yet but, Tucker and I figured it was the best way for you to celebrate. Except Tucker wasn't able to get tickets for this weekend and so we decided next weekend would do just the same."

"Thanks Sam." He reached over and held her hand in his. "It'll be nice to see Jazz without one of our lives being in danger."

"I'll say. So did your parents remember this year? Or did Jazz have to tell them?"

"They definitely remembered except I think it was because she reminded them a week or so ago because they were ready with presents this morning. They actually wanted to take me out to dinner, but I told them that we would all be doing something instead. They seemed pretty happy though to hear that. Said that they were trying to fix the Ecto-Stopo-Powerifyer or as they now call it the Fenton Photon-Deleter." Sam made a face. "Yeah, still not the best name, but at least I know how to spell this one."

"Wasn't that the one that would use your dad's cell phone as a signal to make sure all ghosts were wasted in that vicinity?"

"The very one. Now they're trying to get it to run smoother. Which for them is going to take a bit. But at least they're preoccupied by something so we don't have to worry about them as much."

"Yeah that is good. But they'll eventually have that weapon down to where they want it, so we'll need to be prepared. What did they get you?"

"I'll go down and slow things down just to make sure we can keep on top of them. Let's see, Jack actually got me a new watch. It's kind of nice." He lifted his left arm to show her the black banded watch with silver roman numerals and a black face.

"That is nice. Something I wouldn't quite expect from your dad."

"I've been leaving tips around the house." He shrugged just as a staff member brought over Sam's Green Tea White Jasmine and Kale salad along with Danny's iced Chocolate Mint Teappucino's and a Smoked Turkey and Swiss Panini.

"What'd your mom get you then?" She asked and then took a drink of one of her favorite teas.

"Two new band T-shirts; one for Dumpty Humpty and the other for the Black Keys. And she got me a new wallet since my old one was looking a little worse for wear." He said then bit into his Panini.

"I'll say. You were losing more money out of that thing, then putting any in it."

He was about to answer with a funny quip of _'That's what dating's for'_ but she shot him a look before he could get the first word out of his mouth. With both of their mental walls weakened a bit, he got a sense that she was baiting her time to give him something.

"You got me something?" They both asked at the same time, though Danny tacked on 'else' at the end of his sentence.

"We need to practice." Sam chuckled then reached down by her feet where her small purse was stashed, grabbed what she needed then sat back up again. "Yeah I got you something else but, it's not really for your birthday."

Danny arched a brow, "Then what's it for?"

"Well, remember I told you that I would get you something to wear as well since we weren't going all old school?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I got you something." A slight blush colored her cheeks

He chuckled and reached into his pocket and pulled out his gift to her. "That's so funny because you were right; I have something for you too." He smiled wider as he saw her lilac eyes light up as he released he hand and pulled out his creation from his pocket.

"Danny." Her hand placed the box that held her item for him on the table next to her drink, her eyes still transfixed on the ice glinting in the sunlight. "It's beautiful."

"It's simple but I knew that that was better than anything big and flashy." He handed it over to her to examine. She took it carefully, afraid that a simple move would break the ice. "Don't worry about that. It's just like the diamond crystal I made a while ago. It won't break unless hit with extreme force. Like Frostbite's arm."

"Can you put it on me?" She looked up at him and moved her hair to the side. He obliged and got up from his seat to clasp the necklace around her neck. When he sat down he took the moment to admire as the ice crescent moon attacked to a star pendant rested smoothly against the soft skin at the base of her throat and how the black ribbon band wrapped around her neck before disappearing behind her hair where a lock was fastened to keep it in place.

"How does it look?" She reached up to touch the pendent and tried to look down at it even though she was barely able to make out the bottom of the moon and star combination.

' _Beautiful.'_ Danny thought before he could speak it aloud. They both blushed, and Sam locked eyes with him, a smile clear on her lips.

"I like the star and moon. It reminds me of us."

Danny chuckled. "Yeah I was going through my mind last night trying to figure out what to make, which is why I was blocking you. I had made my insignia, a bat, just a star, a heart, even one with both of our initials, but then I thought that was kind of stupid."

Sam laughed as well, touching her ice pendent again. "Yeah that one's a bit cheesy. How'd you come up with the idea to use your ice powers to make it?" She used this time to take a bit out of her salad.

"Tucker actually." He took a bite of his Panini. "And the band actually came from one of Jazz's older necklaces that she doesn't wear anymore. Don't worry I asked her before taking it."

"I guess I'll have to thank them both, too. Do you want yours now?" She eyed the box.

"Yeah. But you really didn't have to get me anything."

"True. But I wanted to." She smiled and slid over the box across the table to him then took another drink and a bite of her salad.

Danny gingerly opened the blank black box and found white tissue paper covering what Sam got him. He placed the top part of the box on the table and moved aside the tissue paper to see a black leather bracelet settled into the box. He lifted it out and examined the gold plate that adorned the piece and found the inscription, ' _Soul, Body and Mind_ '.

"Wow!" He looked up at Sam who was looking at him expectantly and asking him what he thought of it through their link. "I love it." He instantly reached out his hand to her to have her buckle it onto his right wrist. "This is so cool, Sam." He looked at the small dark band and golden plate more closely and was amazed at how nice it felt on his skin. "You didn't spend a ton on this did you?" He was getting a tad worried that he should have actually gone out and bought her something instead.

"No," She shook her head, "I didn't." Which was true; the most expensive part was the engraving on the plate and it still was under thirty dollars.

"Thanks, Sam." He leaned across the small table – realizing what he was doing, Sam met him half way. He kissed her tenderly and neither of them wanted to pull away, but they were in public and kept the kiss short and then went back to their meals.

When they were done with their lunch they made their way back to Sam's car and headed towards Lazer Lanes – the local bowling alley, arcade and laser tag place. However they were interrupted as Technus appeared above them, causing Danny's ghost sense to go off.

"Great, first Skulker and now Technus. You wanna call Tucker?" he asked her as he the bright lights travel up and down his body to transform him into his other half.

"Yeah, we're gonna need him over here anyway." She said and began to pull off to the side of the road as Danny flew through the roof of her car. She sighed heavily, "I would like for him to have one birthday where he didn't have to deal with ghosts." Then she dialed Tucker's number.

"Hello?"

"Yeah, we're not gonna make it to Lazer Lanes. Were down by the Queen's Dragon still and Technus is out and about again."

"He can't have even one quiet birthday can he?"

"No. But that's what next weekend's for." She found a spot to park and got out of the car after grabbing a wrist ray and a thermos.

"Yeah. Okay, I'll be there in a few minutes."

* * *

 **September 29** **th** **, 2014**

 **Monday**

 **Fenton Works – Danny's Room**

 **7:35 a.m.**

The next morning as Danny was getting ready for school he and Sam were conversing in their minds. She had gotten up at her normal time to eat breakfast while Danny was rushing about and as being one of his best friends was making fun of him for it.

' _You still want me to pick you up or are you going to fly?'_

' _No I'll be ready by the time you get here. I do_ not _want to be run down by the media again. Ever since the whole thing with the GIW I've noticed they've been trying to follow me more often again.'_

Sam chuckled; he could tell she was having a good morning which made his own morning even better considering her hatred of the early hours. _'Our very own celebrity. You know if you fly then Tucker would finally get to sit in the front seat and he'd stop complaining.'_

Danny rolled his eyes as he pulled the new Dumpty Humpty concert T-shirt over his head from Maddie. _'It's not my fault I live closer to you than he does. And anyway he sits in the front when we leave campus so he has nothing to be complaining over.'_ He felt an immediate shift in her focus and confusion and anger shot through him but he didn't understand why. _'Sam? What's wrong?'_

' _You have to pick up Tucker. I'll be at school around lunch time. I'm putting up my wall.'_ He could hear the fierceness in her mental voice and a small trickle of fear and then he was shut out.

"What the hell?" he stood in his room, pants in hand. "What did her parents do this time?" He growled to himself and hurriedly pulled on his pants and grabbed his book bag before changing and flying to Tucker's.

When he landed in his friend's room, Tucker yelped in surprise as he appeared. "What are you doing?"

"Sam said she's not coming to school until after lunch and then she blocked me out. Said we have to walk." Tucker frowned and folded his arms across his chest.

"What the hell did her parents do now?"

"I have no idea and I can't try and figure it out because she's put up a mental wall. I guess we're just going to have to wait till lunch." He growled in annoyance. "Come on, I'll fly us invisibly so we're not late."

They got to school with a few minutes to spare and to homeroom without Lancer giving Danny a sad and condescending look. Danny always ignored the look anyway because he hated disappointing Lancer after the things he'd been through with him and all he's done to help him keep his grades up.

Everything was going normal until lunch – which was kind of normal when Danny and Tucker thought about. Ghost attacks typically happened around the same time with the few strays at other times of the day; lunch time being one of those regular times. When they were sitting down to eat Danny sent a group chat text out to Sam and Tucker – just to make sure they were all in the same conversation – to see what Sam's estimated arrival time was.

 **I'm actually not coming today.** \- Sam

Both boys looked at each other with furrowed brows, anger clear on their faces.

 **What's going on?** – Tucker

They waited nearly five minutes before a response came through.

 **My parents. Look don't worry, I'll tell you guys later tonight in person** – Sam

Danny and Tucker didn't like the sound of that. Whatever had happened that morning was not something that was good. She only ever wanted to deliver news in person if it was extremely bad and one of them would react badly.

"She's definitely worried." Danny said, he could feel a slight drop in her wall, letting him able to feel a small portion of what she was feeling. "And angry. Definitely angry."

"You don't think they're getting another restraining order on you, do you?"

Danny shrugged, but a worried bubble rose in his chest. "I don't know. I hope not. But if they were she would just call me and tell me that. This has to be something worse." He mused and leaned his elbow on the table, head rested in his hand.

"Worse than the restraining order? Like sending her off to Europe?" Tucker took a bite of his burger.

"Maybe. I can't get a better reading on her feelings. But that would be enough to set her off like this." He sighed and slapped his hand on the table in annoyance. "Why can't they just accept her for who she is?"

"Because money has clouded their judgements." Tucker answered. Though he sounded blasé about what was happening, inside he was so worried he felt sick. Sam never held out on them, which meant whatever was going on was terrible. More terrible than anything they had happened across before.

Danny gasped and Tucker looked up from his food just in time to see Danny's breath disappear. "I am so not in the mood right now." But Danny got up from his seat. "I'll be back." And made his way to the bathrooms to go find out who was bothering him today.

It wasn't anyone quite important he found out as he flew around the school to see a pack of white ghost wolves roaming about on the street, chasing the few people who were actually out. And next thing he knows he's going to town on them. After sucking them all up in the Fenton Thermos he realized that he didn't need to take a breather before heading back to school. Sam's anger and now annoyance was overflowing to him and he didn't exactly block her because he wanted to know what was going on with her. But her emotions combined with his anger towards her parents did not help him when fought those ghost wolves.

When things like this happened he could actually envision himself becoming the Ghost King, but he knew that if this was what being the Ghost King entailed then he would just become another version of his other self.

When he found himself to be calmer he made his way back to school just in time for his last classes of government where he had a test and Ghost 101 where they were informed that they would be starting up a group project soon and to start thinking of what they might want to discuss and who they would want to do the project with – a minimum of two partners a maximum of three. Which worked out perfectly well for the trio, though Danny joked with Tucker that he should go try a woo Valerie with his knowledge. That earned him a smack to the back of the head, which he laughed off.

When school ended Tucker texted her and asked if they could come over but Sam was very adamant on the fact that they should not come over yet. Especially not invisibly.

"Well this blows." Tucker grumbled as they walked back to his house. The usual flow of pedestrian traffic after school and having Sam not show up to school would make it weird if Danny flew them back to Tucker's house, but they almost didn't mind walking considering they had done it so much their freshman year.

They spent the rest of their night fighting ghosts and getting homework in when they could until Sam sent them a text around 10 o'clock that night telling them they could come over, but only through her window.

Danny instantly flew both of them to her house, his worry had been building all day and he was ecstatic to finally be getting an answer to what was going on. Tucker was still a bundle of nervous like before because he had no idea what to expect what Sam's reasoning for missing class that day was. And typically he and Danny were on top of those things but now they were completely in the dark.

When they arrived in her bedroom it was lit only by a few of her non-scented black and purple candles leaving eerie shadows on the walls. Sam was pacing in front of her dresser, arms folded across her chest and muttering to herself. She looked up as they turned visible once again and Danny set Tucker down. They were surprised to see anger and fear through her eyes and a sense of doom settled over them.

"Sam?" Danny stepped forward, his arm reaching out towards her. "What's going on?" He was trying to get past her mental shield but nothing he did would break it. He couldn't understand why she was so instant on keeping him out when she was the one insisting that she missed having him in her head and wanted him to always be there.

"I…" She stopped and looked down at the floor and swallowed loudly.

"It's okay, Sam, just tell us whatever it is." Tucker reassured.

She let out a long breath through her mouth and looked back up at them both. To their worried faces and Danny's hand still reached out towards her.

"My parents introduced me to my suitor today. I'm having an arranged marriage."

"What!"

"Apparently, I'm getting married. Next spring."

 **September 29th, 2014**

 **Monday**

 **Manson Mansion - Sam's room**

 **10:05 p.m.**

* * *

AH! What?! No! LOL can't wait to hear what you guys think about this! I would like to see another minimum of 7 reviews! I know you guys can do it! i love you guys so much! (I know that's a lot of exclamation points).

I totally forgot about Danny's birthday this chapter! They're really going to celebrate it next weekend. But for now it's roughly a birthday. Pulled the food from the Queen's Dragon from a café in my home city that caters to the vegan palate.

 ****Answers to Reviewers!**

 **Blue11msu: Yeah I wanted to put the fight in with Chaser but it really wasn't that important to the story line so I didn't. I've really gotten drawn into the idea of Danny making ice sculptors. *I know it's not really an answer, but it kinda is lol***

 **SamXDanny: I'm sorry you were sick! Hope you're feeling better! I've bene a little under the weather too these past view days. You'll have to see about the stuff Danny said later *Evil laughter***

 **ShadowDragon357: Honeymoon phase ended. Lol. Yeah I totally agree with you on the fact that Sam would have been taught how to play pool by Ida and then use that to her advantage later on. I totally see Danny and her hustling guys or something lol. I'm so sorry for not PMing you! I keep getting caught up! But I promise promise promise PROMISE to email you by Tuesday! Oh yeah and Sam's mouth is totally gonna get her in trouble one of these days. That's a given. *wink wink nudge nudge* LOL**

 **Savirox: They should!**

 **Phantom Fire1: So happy that you liked the first chapter! Hope you stayed for all the other chapters, even if you haven't gotten to this chapter yet!**

 **Rocky Rooster: Yeah I've definitely put the thought process into having Danny do ice sculptures. Thanks so much for your support through this story so far! It really means a lot to me!**

 **CaptainDorito: Right?! Tucker is pretty awesome! Yeah I'm the same way about kissing too. When I was typing out their fight I wasn't sure what side I wanted either. Because I could have made either side work but it'll be nice for this to work out. And I'm so happy you really like the lyrics and stuff. I'm gonna put it up on the next chapter :)**


	22. Rumors

Hey guys so here's the next chapter! The lyrics will be explained at the end of the chapter!

 **Warning:** this chapter gets really cruel towards the end, just so everyone is aware. I want everyone to understand that I'm setting this story in a more realistic world which is why they curse a lot. And words that are said are some things that I've heard said about some people in my high school. Not a lot said to their faces but I also need to keep up with the fact that this is a story and you're not going to hear it through the three main characters unless the others are upfront. Just so you understand! If anyone has any problems or thinks this is too unrealistic call me up and I'll give you examples on exactly how mean high schoolers can get. Also this is the max amount of curse words i will use otherwise i know i'd have to push this story to an 'M' rating and i really don't want to do that right now.

Thank you all to my reviewers! Even if a couple of you weren't as nice about this whole thing with Sam I'm still happy to hear your opinion of my story: **SamXDanny, Lazy Chipmunk, ShadowDragon357, snoopykid, Rocky Rooster, Great, Danny Phantom Overlord, Savirox, GlraxaystarfireKatnissbluerose, Guest, ShinyMudkipGal, Phantom Fire1, guest, and Captiolblonde.**

 *****Answers to reviews:** **SamXDanny, Lazy Chipmunk, ShadowDragon357, snoopykid, Great, Savirox, Phantom Fire1, Captiolblonde.**

Also **ShadowDrago357** brought to my attention that I haven't been very clear on their ages throughout this story! I am so sorry about that! I haven't really kept up on that as I've been writing and I probably should have.

 **Danny:** 17 now. Birthday 9/28 height 6'2 (I'm changing this from the first chapter by one inch)

 **Sam:** 17 now. Birthday in August (will find out date in this chapter) height 5'6

 **Tucker:** 16 now. His birthday is in March. At least that's what I like to think. Height 6'0

 **Jazz:** 18 now. I don't know when I want her birthday to be yet. But she'll be turning 19 in this story height 5'8

Anyway where I live you enter your junior year of high school at 16 and turn 17 when you're a junior. Going into your senior year you're 17 and turn 18 while you're still a senior. Now there a few exceptions. Like one of my friends his birthday is at the end of July and if he were in this story he was like Sam. Turned 17 just before the school year started. But then I have another friend who's birthday is at the end of the school year in June so she spent the whole junior year of school being 16 and turned 17 just after junior year ended.

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or the song lyrics from 'Rumors' by Adam Lambert.**

* * *

 **The envy runs deep**

 **The jealousy down low**

 **It's easy to see**

 **But it's harder to let go**

 **We ain't gonna hide (we ain't gonna hide)**

 **We know what they don't know**

 **A hell of a ride**

 **I swear I'll hold you close**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Rumors**

 **Word count: 12,031**

 **2/14/16**

* * *

 **September 29** **th** **, 2014**

 **Monday**

 **Manson Mansion – Sam's Room**

 **10:05 p.m.**

"What do you mean you're in an arranged marriage!" Danny shouted his already glowing green eyes seemed to make the room glow brighter. His hands curled into angered fists.

"Yeah, Sam aren't arranged marriages illegal?"

"No they're not illegal. They're only illegal if it's a forced marriage. However the incredibly wealthy can get away with almost anything." She scoffed, "I found out my parents had been arranged to be married if they hadn't started dating on their own in high school." She threw up her arms in exasperation and began her pacing again.

"Your grandma did that for your dad?" Danny asked surprised, freezing his anger for a moment.

"No. My grandfather actually." She growled out. "Apparently with our companies we're not the only ones who do arranged marriages. But I had no idea! I had no idea that they were really still going on!"

"Samantha!" Her father's voice rang out and the light from the hallway flicked on, streaming into Sam's room through her open door. "What are you doing up?"

"Hide!" Sam whispered at them before jumping into her bed and pulled her phone which was on her side table to her ear, pretending to be talking.

Danny placed his hand on Tucker's shoulder and turned them both invisible just as her father's shadow appeared and then his physical being appeared in the doorway to her room.

"Samantha, are you on the phone?"

"Well, I was." Danny and Tucker could hear the venom in her voice clearly. She pretended to say 'bye' and put it back on her side table.

"You need to go to sleep, sweetheart. Have to get up early tomorrow and all."

"It's only ten."

Jeremy sighed and stepped into her room, "Look, Sammy…"

"I do _not_ want to talk about it. I'll go to bed, just leave me alone."

"Samantha." He narrowed his eyes at her and stopped walking towards her, still in the light from the hallway. He and her held their gazes and then he looked away, deciding not to get into the argument now. "Don't forget to blow out your candles." He turned and walked out her door without waiting for a reply.

They all waited for the hallway light to be turned off and the sound of the master bedroom door to close before Sam got back out of her bed and Danny and Tucker reappeared. She made her way over to her door and closed it before turning back to her boys.

"We should go somewhere else to talk."

"The park?" Tucker suggested.

"Probably the best." Danny conceded. After Sam blew out the candles in her room he wrapped his arms around both of their waists before flying off towards the park.

Danny landed them near the swings of the large playground that was meant for little kids knowing that they would less likely to be caught in this area if anyone would come wondering around. As soon as he landed and made sure no one else was around Danny changed back into his human-self.

"Okay, why don't you start at the beginning?" He ran a hand through his hair as he looked at her. "If we know everything that happened me and Tucker can work this out better."

Sam sighed and rubbed her forehead then folded her arms across her chest, clearly distressed about the situation. "It started this morning when I was texting Danny." She spoke to both of them.

* * *

 _ **September 29**_ _ **th**_ _ **, 2014**_

 _ **Monday**_

 _ **Manson Mansion - Kitchen**_

 _ **7:35 a.m.**_

 _She couldn't believe that Danny wasn't ready. Actually scratch that she could. She was finishing up her oatmeal with almond milk and berries and then she'd be on her way to pick him up. She was about to respond to Danny's message about Tucker being annoying about sitting in the front of her car when the doorbell rang. She shared a confused look with her parents. She wondered if it was someone for her grandma, though they wouldn't find her because she had been picked up a few minutes ago to have a meeting with the board of directors for the company._

" _I wonder who could be here?" Pamela asked aloud as Jeremy stood from his seat to answer the door. "We weren't expecting company until this afternoon."_

" _They're here early, honey!" They both heard Jeremy call and the sounds of foot-falls approaching the kitchen._

 _Pamela gasped and turned her attention to Sam, "Hurry, go upstairs and change into something a bit nicer."_

" _What? Why?" She looked down at her deep purple jean shorts and black ¾ sleeve shirt. It was at least covering her belly today considering the school had implemented a new part to the dress code stating that belly shirts were no longer allowed. She hadn't been too happy on that fact._

" _Please, Sammy?" Her mother reached for her hand but Sam pulled it away just in time._

" _I look fine, mom."_

 _Pamela's eyes turned fierce but she was unable to respond as her father entered the room with three people in tow. "We really hadn't expected you till Lunch."_

" _Sorry for that. But we got in early last night and figured we'd surprise you this morning." The man said._

 _He was a few inches taller than her father, closer to Danny's height with completely grey hair, but his build showed that even though he was older he still kept in particularly good shape. He was stocky, so much unlike her father who held a slim build. His facial features were sharp and Sam knew this man was a business man by the way his blue/green eyes seemed to analyze everything they touched. He wore casual khaki's and a blue collared short-sleeve shirt leaving Sam to believe that he wasn't here on business._

 _A woman stood next to him who she took to be his wife given the large rock on her left ring finger. Sam figured she was close to her own mother's age considering the few lines visible on the soft but prominent features of her face. She had long brown hair that fell past her shoulders in many lengths and hazel eyes. She looked too kind to be the wife of the man she stood next to, but Sam knew she had to be because the next person was a clear representation of the both of them._

 _He was probably college age and wore the same outfit similar to his fathers except with a light pink button down instead. He was shorter than his father, stood closer to Jeremy's height of 5'10. His hair was dark brown and cropped short in front reminding her of Cam Gigandet from Twilight and Burlesque. (Yes she watched the twilight movies because she read the books first, and they still tanked. And Burlesque was too awesome to not watch – though she only watched it with her grandma.)The guy had the same blue/green eyes as his father, just as sharp though his facial features clearly followed his mother's. Sam figured he'd probably make a great politician or lawyer._

" _Sam." Her father turned towards her, "This is Charles Wellingswood the fourth or better known as Tony, his wife Laura and his son Charles Wellingswood the fifth or as he likes to be called, Charlie."_

 _She put on her best fake pleasant smile – it was still morning the only time she smiled was if Tucker made a joke or Danny did something sweet. "Nice to meet you. Are you in association with Wellingswood Steel?" The last name sounded very familiar._

" _Why yes, my great-great grandfather started the company." Tony answered and Sam began to wonder why he went by Tony, but figured it had to be a middle name._

" _Samantha, dear why don't you go on up and change into something more suitable for the country club? You won't be attending classes until later today."_

" _What do you mean I'm not going to school today? Who's going to pick up Danny and Tucker?"_

" _I'm sure they are able to take the bus or walk, Samantha." Her mother's eyes turned sharp again. "Now up you go."_

 _She huffed in annoyance, but made her way up stairs texting Danny on the way that she wasn't going to class. She'd rather be in school, but if her mom already called her in then trying to attend would be foolish since Pamela would just follow her there and pull her back out again. She decided besides that, that it would be best to go with them to figure out why the Wellingswood family was at her home and what they wanted. Because someone always wanted something._

 _She exchanged her shorts for a high-waisted pleated purple skirt and made her way back downstairs, smiling at her mother's dislike for the outfit. "So, were going to eat at the Country Club?"_

" _Yes, Samantha." Her father said. "We'll be taking our car while the Wellingswood's follow behind us."_

 _Sam turned on the heel of her combat boots towards the garage. When they were well on their way to the Amity Country Club Sam asked, "What's going on?"_

" _We'll tell you later." Pamela answered._

 _Sam wasn't going to let that go, though. "No really, just tell me. You don't pull me out of school for stupid reasons."_

" _You will find out soon, Sammy."_

" _Mom, what is so important that you can't tell me right now? Why can't you just tell me and we won't have to argue about this."_

" _That's enough, Samantha." Jeremy jumped in as they pulled into the parking lot for the Club._

" _No, apparently this concerns me and if you're not going to inform me as to why, then I'm walking home." She knew she went to extremes with her parents but this was typically the only way to get them to open up to her about certain things._

 _Pamela sighed and twisted her wedding band around her finger and Sam knew she was going to get her way. "You will be getting to know Charlie, their son. Then after you have turned eighteen and you are about to graduate high school you and Charlie will get married."_

" _What did you just say?" She couldn't have heard what her mother said right. No possible way._

" _You know what I said, Samantha."_

" _No." She had barely thought it before it was out of her mouth. "No way am I going to accept terms under an arranged marriage contract."_

" _Stop being so childish, Samantha."_

" _No! I am not being childish. Why would you assume that I would be okay with something like this!"_

 _Pamela turned around in her seat to get a better view of her daughter. "You will not being saying that once you get to know Charlie. He's a really nice young man and has a great personality. And we're introducing you to each other now so you have time to make that connection and want to be together."_

 _Sam couldn't believe that this was actually happening. She had to be dreaming, but everything was too realistic to be dreaming. Then a thought occurred to her, "You're only doing this because of me and Danny. I'm finally happy with him and just like always you want to take that away."_

 _Pamela shook her head as Jeremy got out of the car and closed the door behind him to lead the Wellingswood's into the Club while they finished their argument. "No. This has been planned since you were little, just like with me and your father and grandma and your grandfather and my own mother and father, and your aunt and uncle. Great things come from them and your father and I just want what's best for you."_

" _And putting me into an arrange marriage contract is what's best for me?"_

" _It will insure that you stay within the circle that we live in."_

" _No." She made sure her voice was strong and commanding otherwise she wasn't going to get it across to her mother that she was not going to be participating in this event she devised._

 _Pamela sighed and twisted her ring again, "Just try and be friends with him first and if you really do not like him then we can talk about it. However, we need not keep them all waiting." And with that she was out of the car and walking with assured steps towards the front doors._

 _Sam followed after; even though she knew her mother was lying maybe she could figure out what Charlie's stand point was on the subject. And if he felt the same way that she did, and then they could work the system of their parents to stop this arranged marriage before it even started._

 _Sam followed her mother to the table where the only other open seat was between her father and Charlie. Across from her sat Charlie's mother Laura whom Pamela sat next to._

 _As they sat at the table Sam asked a key question that had her receiving a lot of information on how this situation came about. "How long have you and my mother been friends?"_

 _Laura smiled at Pamela before turning her attention back to Sam. "Oh! Well, since we were in grade school together in Chicago. When we were that age we had dreamed of never splitting apart and I'm still amazed that that dream came true. We attended boarding school together and dreamed of attending the others wedding's and seeing our children grow up together. You know Boarding School was where she met your father when we were in seventh grade. I used get on him all the time about making sure he treated her right and he know if he didn't who he'd have to answer to." She laughed as the rest of the table._

" _How did you and Mr. Wellingswood meet, if you don't mind me asking?" She hoped keeping the polite tone would open more than enough doors._

" _Tony, please dear. Mr. Wellingswood is my father." That got a laugh out of the entire table, though Sam didn't find it very funny. She thought it was overused most of the time._

" _Yes, Tony then."_

" _Oh, well we met in college through your father. I was married at the time to someone my parents had picked however I just knew after the first couple of times that I'd met him that I had to marry him. So I divorced and me and Tony married six months later. Your mother and father were in the wedding. My parents were completely baffled at the divorce but were okay with Tony considering what his family dealt in."_

 _A picture of her parents on their wedding day came to her mind and she instantly realized that the woman with her arm intertwined with her mother was this woman sitting across from her in a pink bridesmaid dress. And the man on the other side of her father was sitting just across from her father._

 _She was barred from asking anymore questions as the waiter came through to ask for their orders. When he was gone again she asked, "Why have we never met before?"_

" _We actually live in Atlanta, Georgia." Tony answered. "That's where I grew up and the company's headquarters are there."_

" _Yes, but Charlie attends the University of Chicago for International Business. He's a freshman this year." Laura interrupted her husband._

 _She knew she had been right when she determined that he was older than her. "When's your birthday?" She turned her head to look at him. From up close she could see the flecks of amber that floated in his eyes and she couldn't help but miss Danny's pure blue ones; a tight ache formed in her chest._

" _March 6_ _th_ _, 1995. And when is yours?" His voice was deep and charming, about the same tone as his father's but nowhere near Danny's full-toned and rich deep voice._

" _August 9_ _th_ _, 1997."_

 _Sam turned back to their parents but found that they'd each started their own conversations with each other. She sighed and turned back to him. "Any siblings?"_

 _As they conversed – mainly him conversing with her – she found out he had a younger sister named Alex, a German shepherd named Calvin – she had been adamant on telling him that she was a cat person – that he volunteers at a shelter up in Chicago and one when he's home. He loves Rock music along with Country and Alternative, but Rock is his favorite. He reads a lot – but nothing that she would typically get her hands on and that he was on the University's Soccer team and when spring rolled around he would try out for the Lacrosse team as well._

 _She only gave answers about herself in regards to the questions she had asked him, and though he seemed easy to talk with she didn't see him as someone she could actually become friends with much less someone she would get married to._

 _After breakfast and learning more about Lacrosse than she ever thought possible, they all made their way back to her home. She hoped that she could get a few minutes to herself but the Adults suggested that they go out and have Sam show Charlie the town._

" _And make sure to not run into anything_ bad or dangerous _." Her mother pointedly said, and Sam knew that meant ghosts and most importantly Danny or Tucker. But mainly Danny. They were okay with Tucker since they knew his parents from the events that the Foley's sometimes attended._

 _Sam sighed but made her way to her car mainly so she could get away from her parents and really question Charlie about this whole mess that they were in. She debated calling her grandma and asking her if she knew anything about it, but decided to hold off considering she didn't know if she was still in a meeting or not. She didn't wait for Charlie to follow her when she got into her vehicle but was unsurprised to find him right behind her._

 _For a while it was quiet as she drove around town, not exactly pointing anything out but just letting him take in the sights. Anyway, she'd have different stories than what most people would have over certain places. Such as when they passed the video store on fourth street she remembered fighting Technus there or Music store a few blocks over where Ember liked to go check out the new guitars and scare off the people who didn't have talent or the butchers shop on Locust St. where the Lunch Lady liked to give compliments on the butchers handiwork. She couldn't tell Charlie that of course but she liked the memories that popped into her head, even if she wished some of them didn't end with Danny or Tucker getting hurt so badly._

 _It's when she passed the diner that was her favorite – the same one that Danny took her to on their first date almost two weeks ago that she finally asked the questions she's been meaning to bring up the whole ride. "Are you seriously okay with what our parents are making us do?"_

" _You're not?" She could hear the confusion in his voice and she really hoped he was just putting up a front and not really on board with this plan._

" _No!" She shouted then toned her voice down. "It's wrong and immoral and takes away our personal freedom and decisions to choose who we want. Our parents don't make decisions for us, we make our own choices."_

" _Okay, so you're not wrong about that." She almost sighed a relief, he was on her side. "But, I also understand why they're doing this because they were all friends and figure that's going to be easy for us."_

 _Or not. Damn it._

" _Yeah, friends I could manage." Not. "But marriage!" She huffed and pulled the car over into the parking lot area knowing she won't be able to have this conversation without risk of wrecking her car._

" _True, it's kind of daunting but I've known about this since I was little. It's easy to just stay on the path you've been groomed towards. And isn't marriage just having a unification between two best friends anyway?"_

" _I already have_ two _," She glared over at him, "I don't need another one. Don't you?"_

" _Yes, I have a group of friends and one extremely close friend but he's a guy and I'm not gay." Sam threw him a look, "Not that there's anything wrong with being gay. But it's different from having a friend that's a girl."_

" _That's true." Sam conceded to that point. "But an arranged marriage? I'm sorry but I'm not your girl."_

" _That's okay." He shrugged his shoulders. "But if it's alright with you I'd like to try and be your friend."_

 _Sam sat there for a moment contemplating over his words. They sounded sincere enough but she honestly didn't trust him. And if he was siding for a 'yes' on this whole marriage contract then she needed to figure out his weakness and get him to call it off. Maybe she could drive him away like she tried to do with Prince Aragon. She has great manipulation skills, now might be a time to put them to the test again._

" _Okay. We'll try and be friends."_

 _Charlie let out a sigh and smiled at her and the ache in her chest was back. She wanted to see her boys; Danny's crooked smile and Tucker's that filled his whole face. Damn she needed to stop being so sappy, this kid was making her miss her boys way to much; everything about him was just wrong. From the brown hair instead of black, the mix of blue/green eyes instead of the distinct solid blue on Danny and green on Tucker, from the shorter height than both of them and the too proper clothes and speech. This was someone that fit the mold and that set her back right away._

 _Sure she had finally determined that fitting the mold was fine for people when it worked for them and she stopped being so pushy on being an individual because everyone had to find themselves at some point but she knew she couldn't deal with someone who was like this all the time. Someone who would not fight for what they truly wanted._

" _That's a pretty necklace." He pointed to her neck where she had started fingering the ice pendent unconsciously. "Where'd you get it?"_

 _A smile came to her face, "My boyfriend gave it to me."_

" _Oh! I didn't know that you had a boyfriend." She could hear the clear worry in his voice at this fact. "It's very beautiful. How long have you two been together?"_

" _For almost two weeks."_

 _She saw him visibly relax and she knew that the 'two weeks' statement wasn't an overpowering thing. "Oh that's nice."_

" _Yeah. But we've been best friends since kindergarten." She couldn't help the smirk that formed on her mouth when she saw the fear slowly come back on his face._

" _Oh, that's good. So he's one of your best friends?"_

" _Him and my other best friend Tucker."_

" _So you don't have any friends that are girls?"_

" _Well, Danny's sister Jazz is my friend but otherwise, no."_

" _Oh."_

" _Yeah." She decided that this was going to be the end of the conversation and pulled back out of the parking lot and headed back towards her house. It was the same going back as it was heading out; quiet. She played music through her phone through the Bluetooth in her car but otherwise the conversation was kept at the nonexistent level._

 _When they get back to the house Sam and Charlie found their parents sitting in what Sam dubbed the 'silk room' where all the furniture was all silk. "Am I able to go to school now?" was the first question she asked her parents._

" _No, Sammy. Why don't you take the day, okay?"_

 _She rolled her eyes and turned sharply on her heels out of the room, heading for her room. She sent a text to Danny and Tucker that she wouldn't be attending school at all that day. When Tucker asked 'why' she told him it had something to do with her parents and that she'd tell him and Danny about it later in person._

 _She closed her door as she made her way into her room and flopped down onto her bed. She wanted to tell them right now but doing it over the mind link or over the phone just would seem to belittle what was going on. And she knew if she let her walls down now she wouldn't be able to get them back up and she didn't want to take either boy from school and she wasn't going to be responsible for Danny's or Tucker's actions. Though she was more worried about Danny's reaction than Tucker's in this type of situation._

 _For the rest of the day she had lunch with them all and then she had the obligation of hanging out with Charlie until they all had to get ready for the Dinner Party that was being thrown for the Wellingswood's by some of their other friends. Her and Charlie kept up a small conversation throughout the time that they 'hung out'. He asked her about what her school life was like, her favorite color and what her favorite food was. Simple questions that were meant to open up more subjects but Sam made sure to keep her answers to a minimum. She wasn't going to give him more knowledge about her than what he was asking._

 _She found out that Charlie and his parents would be staying at their home for the next week. This immediately brought Sam up short and she questioned him about what he was going to do about school._

" _We actually started our Autumn session today. But the rest of the week I'll be driving up to Chicago and taking my classes. Mine are all in the morning anyway and I don't have any on Tuesday or Thursday so it makes it easier to work on homework and what not. But this is mainly a syllabus week at least that's what I've been told, so I shouldn't have missed much today. Plus, I emailed my professors ahead of time to let them know that I was missing the first day back to meet you."_

 _She wasn't sure how she felt about that concept but didn't voice her thoughts on the matter. If he wanted to waste the gas money and time to do that then that was his problem, not hers._

 _When it came time to get ready for the party Sam made sure to head up to her room earlier than normal under the pretense to her mother that she wanted to really focus on making sure she looked good. Really she just wanted her own space to breathe after being cooped up next to Preppy Prep for the whole day. She showered and changed into sweats deciding in the shower that if she just didn't go then that might get the point across to her mother this time around how much she truly disliked what they were trying to make he do._

 _Her mother knocked on her door an hour later – thirty minutes before they were due to leave for the party – and walked in before Sam could answer. "How are we doing, Sammykins?" Her hair was up in curlers and her make-up was done, but she was dressed in a fuzzy pink robe making her less intimidating – though Sam was never actually intimidated by her mother._

" _Samantha! Why are you not even close to ready?" She demanded, quickly closing Sam's door to make sure their conversation stayed private._

" _I'm not going." She answered from her desk chair where she was sketching a blood blossom vine. She was trying to figure out the best way she wanted her tattoo to run, but was proving more difficult than she thought._

" _Samantha, really, you must stop this. You are going and that is that."_

" _No. I'm not going and I'm not marrying Charlie." She kept her focus on her drawing, but watched her mother from the side of her eye._

" _This isn't as bad as what you're making it, dear. If you'd only give him a chance he'd show you what a fine match for you he'd be." Her mother now stood a few from her, hands on her hips._

 _Sam sighed and set down her art before turning to her mother and looked her straight into her eyes. "No. This is not going to happen. I refuse to get to know him better because no matter what you say about me and him it won't happen. I love Danny and you are not going to separate us by trying to get me to be with one of the socialites."_

 _Her mother began to rub her temples and closed her eyes. Sam waited a solid minute before Pamela spoke again, opening and locking her eyes with Sam's. "If you do not give him a chance I am going to send you to that private boarding school in England with a bodyguard to make sure you do not leave. You will lose access to the money and will have a monthly balance given to you in a new separate account. No phone, no computer and no gaming. You will be married as soon as you are eighteen instead of waiting. There will also be restraining orders placed on both Danny and Tucker. And no matter what you must break off whatever this little thing with Danny is_ by tomorrow _. Do I make myself clear?"_

 _Sam could only stare at her mother with wide eyes. She tried to form words but nothing wanted to spill from her mouth. When she didn't answer her mother took that as answer enough._

" _Good. Then I will see you downstairs ready to go in twenty minutes. And I expect to hear that you and Danny are no longer romantically together by tomorrow night. And at any point Samantha that I believe that you are not giving your best effort, you will be made to attend to each of the things I have listed." She turned on her slipper covered heels and left Sam's room closing the door behind her._

 _This was not happening. She knew her parents could be harsh. Could be cruel. But to actually threaten her with her friendships to Danny and Tucker? To actually go through with it? She didn't think that this day would ever come. She could feel the rage roaring to life inside of her; she had never been as mad as she was right now. Which said a lot considering there were plenty of things throughout her life to piss her off. She reached for the nearest thing on her desk – her sketchbook and Ghost Journal – and chucked them both at the wall across her room. Actually she took that back the only time she'd been this mad was just after the accident and she had thought that she had killed Danny. She had been so angry with herself she ended up putting a dent in her wall from throwing her phone at it._

 _She stood from her chair and focused on calming her breath and going over what her mother said._ 'If you don't give him a chance.' _So if she didn't give him a chance then she would never see Danny or Tucker or Jazz or Dani again. Her main worry was Danny and Tucker, but they were all her family, if she wasn't able to be in contact with most of her family besides her grandma then what was she going to do?_

 _She sat down in her desk chair again as the realization raced through her like cold water. She would have to pretend to like him. And maybe she could still drive him away with her personality. She knew she was a hard person to get to know and love but that could work in her favor this time around. But her mother told her that she had to break things off with Danny, which was something she_ definitely _did not want to do. She wondered if they could pull off dating in secret? Not that she wanted to hide their relationship. God, no. But if that was the only way they were going to be able to stay together, then she would do anything to keep it._

 _She sighed and realized she only had fifteen minutes till she had to be downstairs. And if she wasn't and her mother had to come pull her out of her room, then that would be the end of everything. She got up and dressed in a black pleated cocktail dress that was one of her favorites, kept on her necklace – at least for one more night – and pulled on a pair of black heels and added her dark eyeliner and dark eyeshadow with burgundy lipstick before making her way downstairs, leaving her hair down and parted to one side._

 _Her mother practically beamed when she saw her but didn't incline anything towards their conversation that they had upstairs. She took the other's compliments as she would anyone else and once everyone was ready to go they made their way to the dinner party._

 _Upon arrival she made sure to take her mother's hints of Charlie and her sticking together and let him lead her around the party as he introduced him to people that she already knew. She had been on the verge of hoping that Vlad or Paulina and her family were not in attendance but she was jousted from that hope when she spotted Paulina speaking with a few other people from Casper High and Vlad stood a few a few feet away from her speaking with the City Manager._

 _She wanted to storm over to Vlad and demand him to tell her what he was planning but she knew that she couldn't do that at the moment. Besides the only way that she was supposed to know Vlad was through Danny and essentially through Jack Fenton – which means she really had no right to go over and make a big scene without people questioning her reasoning's and she couldn't do that to all of their identities. However Charlie was adamant on going over to him and speaking with him having met him a couple of times through business meetings. This information confused Sam because she had not been aware that 'Masters' had any interest in steel. But she figured he must have considering the lab and the suits he built for Skulker now and the weapons he designed. She wondered if the Wellingswood Steel Company helped in manufacturing weapons as well._

" _Hello Charlie, good to see you again. Oh and young Samantha, I dare say I was not expecting you at this gathering."_

" _Neither was I." She kept the fake smile on her face just as Vlad was doing. "But I knew that coming with my family was important. Because you know how much_ myfamily _means to me." She knew it wasn't the best way to jab at him, but she couldn't make it seem too obvious to Charlie that her and Vlad knew each other._

" _Yes, I daresay I do." His voice was barely clipped and she only noticed because of how many times she heard it when she was fighting him with Danny and Tucker. He turned away from her towards Charlie and said, "Be careful around her she can be a stubborn fool at times and doesn't quite know when it is best to let things be." He quickly flashed his angry eyes towards her before moving back to a calmer tone as he looked at Charlie._

 _Sam took out her laser lipstick from the stash the Maddie made for herself and Jazz and took aim at Vlad's foot after making sure no one was paying to close attention and zapped him with it before putting it back in her purse. "Come on Charlie, I'm sure the Mayor has plenty of other people to spend his time with than a couple of teenagers." She smirked at him when he glared at her for the hit._

" _Oh, alright then. If it's okay with you Mr. Masters."_

 _Vlad kept his composure before responding, "Oh sure, sure. I'll be speaking with your father soon anyway over a few business deals. I'd be happy to see you there."_

" _Of course. Have a good night Mr. Masters."_

" _And to you."_

 _Sam pulled his arm and they both turned in the opposite direction only to be immediately stopped by Paulina. This day was just getting worse and worse. She had really hoped that she'd be able to avoid the Latina but luck was not on her side._

" _What the geek not giving it to you like you thought? Had to go and corrupt someone from the higher circle?" Was her sneered comment to Sam._

" _Actually no." Charlie stepped in before Sam could snap back a retort. She was not liking this. "I'm Charlie Wellingswood. And she hasn't corrupted me or whatever you're thinking."_

" _So you dropped Fenton after a week?" She smirked. "Didn't know you were that harsh."_

" _Me and Danny are_ not _broken up." But her mouth snapped shut after she said that. If her mother found out, she said that she'd be screwed. "And you have no business in my personal life." Sam rolled her eyes._

" _Oh this is good. Threesomes with Fenton and Foley and now you're suited up to a Wellingswood? Who's shallow now?"_

 _Sam could see that spark in Paulina's eyes knowing that come tomorrow her life at school was going to be a living hell. But she had to show that what she said didn't bother her; she couldn't let her get under her skin. Though it was working._

" _Still you. Told Dash how many_ people _you've taken out behind the bleachers?" Sam knew stabbing at the fact that she knew about Paulina actually being bisexual or at least bi-curious would work her up, but it was one of the best ways to get back at her, because Sam knew that only a handful of people knew about Paulina's sexuality and she didn't want anyone else to know about it. Sam wouldn't tell anyone except Danny and Tucker of course – she wasn't that mean of a person – but antagonizing her like this really helped relieve the bits of stress she was feeling._

 _Paulina threw her hair over her shoulder, "Whatever. Go hang out with the other bats." Sam knew she meant 'bitch' when Paulina said 'bats' but let her walk away from them._

 _Sam looked up at Charlie to see him glaring after Paulina. "She is a horrible person." Well, at least he didn't like her either._

" _That is one thing I will agree with you on."_

" _Is it like that all the time between you two?" he turned his head to look down at her._

" _Pretty much."_

" _Hmm. She'll make a great soccer mom someday."_

 _Sam let a true smile spread across her face for the first time that entire day. That was one of the funniest things she's heard about Paulina. Of course Tucker had been the first one to say it, but it didn't make it less funny._

" _Oh! Is that Mr and Mrs. Moore? Come on, Sam, let's go say hi." And then she was dragged off for another boring conversation over business and how school was treating Charlie._

 _When they got back to the house Charlie walked her to her room, even though she made sure to stay in front of him the entire time._

" _I had fun tonight and today." He spoke up as she reached her door. She turned around enough to see him but kept a hand on her doorknob. "I would still be interested in being friends with you. If you're up for it."_

" _I'll think it over."_

 _He smiled happily down at her, "That's all I ask. Goodnight, Sam."_

" _Night."_

* * *

 **September 29** **th** **, 2014**

 **Monday**

 **Amity Park - playground**

 **10:31 p.m.**

By the time Sam was done telling the story of her entire day about her suitor, the playground was half frozen and Tucker was mumbling incoherently to himself. "Okay, you can speak now. I'm done." Sam said knowing that they each had to get out their frustrations.

They both exploded at the same time, trampling over each other as they yelled out their concerns.

"How could they do that to you! And who does this Charlie guy think he is?" Danny's voice cut deep through the night. "You're your own person and no one has the right to pull you down! And I can't believe your mom told you that. What kind of mom does that to her child? She's manipulating you into doing what she wants and she doesn't care about your happiness, just about the fact that her image is kept clean. And of course I'm the mark on making her daughter perfect!" he threw his hands up in exaggeration and a tendril of frozen water made its way onto the swings pole he was closest to.

"And furthermore this Charlie character is going along with it! What kind of person is he! Clearly not a level headed one considering he's totally fine in going on with this! And I can't believe your mother is making us break up! That is not happening by the way, we'll just have to do it in secret or something. God, damn it! What is wrong with them? And Paulina making those derogatory comments at you? You have no idea how much I want to go over and… okay actually you do." And she did. She could feel his anger underneath hers and she worked hard on not letting his anger overpower her own emotions. His eyes kept flickering between blue and green and at times a splash of red flared through the green, which scared her down to her core but she kept herself silent and let him continue his rant.

"And Vlad! What the hell was Vlad doing there. Okay yeah he's rich but I mean come on! And what is it likely that he knew the Wellingswood family? That's too coincidental to actually be a coincidence even if their story is secure. Way to coincidental! And just… augh!" He yelled out as he continued to pace back and forth in front of the swings area, waves of cold flowed off of him and Tucker and Sam made sure to steer clear.

"I just never imagined your parents stooping so low!" Tucker started out the same time as Danny. "And we don't know what your grandma has to say about this because she wasn't even there tonight to keep them in check! And they can't take away access to the accounts from you anyway since grandma still has control of the money until she passes. But that gives her no right to send you off away from us! She knows how important me and Danny are to you, which of course is her entire reason for doing this. Which is just wrong! Mothers shouldn't act like that! You are doing nothing wrong and her perfect image she is trying to get you to comply to is just going to make her miserable since you're going to hate her for the rest of your life.

"You're going to have to do everything you can do to drive away this Charlie guy. We are not going to let this happen no matter what. And we're not letting you get sent away to England, though I think sending you with a body guard is extreme I kind of see where your mother would do that considering you would just hop back on a plane to the States as soon as you could. But still putting restraining orders on me and Danny is completely out of line. Does she not realize how happy we make you? And of course Paulina and Vlad just had to be at that dinner party. And we're gonna really hear about it tomorrow. And I knew that that rumor was going to bite us in the ass."

"No you didn't." Sam jumped in as Danny kept rambling his anger.

"Okay, I didn't. But still! Those rumors aren't even going to be the worst for me and Danny! It's going to be on you and I know you're strong Sam but these are going to hit hard. And I still can't believe what you did to Vlad! That's hilarious. But honestly he's being a dick and we seriously need to figure out what he's planning because if the Wellingswood's are a steel company than this is not going to be good. And what if Vlad starts pushing you and this Charlie guy together like Technus did with Valerie and Danny!"

" _That's not going to happen_." Danny growled out having ended his rant.

"Who knows!" Tucker threw up his arms. "Who knows about anything anymore! We're all swimming in a sea of _'who the fuck_ _knows_ ' right now, if you haven't noticed. We still don't know what to do about the GIW, we don't know what to do about Vlad, we don't know what to do about this suitor situation, we don't know what to do about the Ghost King thing and we especially don't know what the new power is in the Ghost Zone that Aragon mentioned and as the Observants on edge! Or is this just me?"

"No." Sam and Danny answered simultaneously.

"Great! Then apparently we're fucked right now."

"No we're not!" Sam shot back.

"We kind of are." Danny said. "But we need to focus on this right now though, okay Tucker? We figure out what to do here that's one thing crossed off the insanely long list of _'I don't know what to do'_.

"Okay then what do you suggest that we do?" Tucker pulled out his PDA with the intention of making notes of these ideas.

Danny shrugged, but anger was still evident in his features, his eyes finally settled on a blazing green. "Me and Sam are going to have to publicly break up."

"What!" Sam turned completely towards him in anger, though through their link she understood immediately what he meant. "Oh. Yeah publicly. But secretly we'll still be dating."

"That's really risky guys."

"What else do we do then?" Danny rolled his eyes.

"I'm just saying!" Tucker put his hands up defensively. "You'll have to tone down the touches and the eyes and most definitely the link when you're around other people."

"It'll be hard, but it'll be worth it if I can work my magic and drive Charlie away from me. Of course I'll have to be subtle about it because of course my mother was adamant on the fact that if I don't put my best foot forward on this whole thing then she's doing everything she told me earlier today."

"And maybe grandma will be able to talk to your parents." Tucker suggested with a bit more of a hopeful tone in his voice.

"Doubt it will actually help though." Sam sighed and wrapped her arms around herself. "I mean I knew that they were difficult and didn't really see me as someone who was their own person. Just trying to rebel against them – which I admit to doing for a while, but I've grown past that – and now it's like I don't even seem to have any semblance of knowledge on who they really are anymore."

Though Sam wasn't all about the physical affection Danny and Tucker could always tell when she needed it – and Danny didn't even need to read her through the link. They moved at the same time and wrapped their arms around their girl.

"We'll get through this. Like we get through everything." Tucker always the voice of reason when Danny and Sam couldn't be. "You guys will secretly date and we'll make sure that we drive this guy away and make sure that Pamela or Jeremy don't realize what's going on. And we'll probably be able to get your grandma to help."

"Tucker's right Sam. We're not going to let this happen. No matter what. And if you have to runaway to Jazz's we'll make due." Danny agreed, anger still boiling through him but he had a better grip on himself now that he had Sam in his arms and their walls were down. She was his god damn it, and no one was going to take her from him.

"I just feel… so helpless. And I _hate_ that." She growled out into Tucker's shirt.

"You're not helpless. You'll be up in no time working your magic." Danny reassured.

They stood there for a moment in angered silence, keep a hold of each other knowing that this wasn't the worst thing that could be happening but it seemed as if the end of the world was coming too quickly anyway and they had no time to figure out how to stop it.

"You know we're going to have to figure out how to unfreeze all of the playground equipment."

* * *

 **September 30** **th** **, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **Casper High School**

 **7:50 a.m.**

Tuesday could not have moved at a slower pace for the trio. As soon as they entered school grounds they received the worst stares and names whispered behind their backs. Their main focus applied to Sam who everyone was glaring at and giving sad eyes to Danny though they didn't last long as someone would whisper to the unknown person about the threesome rumor. Classes hadn't even started yet and the trio wanted nothing more than to leave campus.

They were pulling their books from Danny's and Tucker's lockers seeing as Sam's carried their extra clothes, gym clothes, shower items and an extra first aid kit along with anything else they could possibly need – when Dash approached Danny.

"So, Paulina told me and everyone else what happened with you and Manson. That's some serious shit buddy. And since it wasn't given to you by me, I'm going to go ahead and take back the part of the bet that you have to do. You're still doing it Foley." Dash turned his blue eyes to green eyed boy, and even though Tucker stood taller than Dash, he shrunk a little. "Anyway, that's rough. I hope things turn out better." He turned to look Sam up and down. "Knew you'd always turn into a slut, Manson." And walked away.

Sam moved to follow him and punch the living daylights out of him, but Danny pulled her back wrapping a secure arm around her waist. "Don't do it. It'll only worsen what everyone is saying."

"Fine." She stopped struggling and he let go of her.

"You're going to have to stop that too. You're supposed to be pissed off at her Danny, not saving her from punching Dash out." Tucker reprimanded.

"Sorry. It's just hard not to act _normal_." He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "But Tucker's right. We'll have to try and keep our distance today. Good thing we have the link and all."

"Yeah." She responded aloud. _'I'll see you in class. Love you.'_

' _Love you too, Sam.'_

Tucker groaned aloud but Sam didn't hear what he said as she made her way down the hall focusing on not looking at the disgusted and disappointed faces.

"Did you hear that they all slept together?"

"I heard she's been cheating on Danny for six months with Tucker."

"No, no it's the other way around."

"What about that new guy? Think they're all having an orgy or something?"

"That's not quite what it's called, Dom."

"I heard she dumped Danny because someone with money actually took interest in her bat freakiness."

"I can't believe Danny and Tucker actually had sex with her."

"Or each other."

"God that's gross! I mean I'm not against homosexuality but I don't want to hear about it. Keep that stuff to themselves."

Sam took mellowing breaths but the sharp words still bit at her mind making her head pound and made her want to skip ahead to the end of the day so she didn't have to deal with the idiots of this school But her luck was still hung up on the shelf, meaning she wasn't getting out of this anytime soon. She heard angered growls from Danny's side of the mind link and she realized that he could hear everything that the student body was whispering about her as she passed down the hallway to Homeroom – which started in two minutes exactly. She told Danny to chill out and that she could handle it. But it didn't make him any less angry about what they were saying about her.

She pushed her shoulders back and held her head higher than it already was and made her way to homeroom deciding to sit in her usual seat considering all the chairs were full in their classroom anyway. When Danny and Tucker came in, Danny reluctantly sat on the other side of Tucker to keep up the pretense of his anger towards Sam when in reality he was throwing her reassurances through their link.

The rest of the day resorted in tactics like this. Whisperings through the hall and whatever classes that Sam had with Danny they purposefully sat away from each other. At one point between periods Danny and Tucker made their way to their lockers where they found notes taped to them reading vile words 'loser fags'. They angrily tossed the papers into the trash and went to check on Sam's locker. They found hers filled with other words 'slut' and 'bitch' to name a few and more littered the front that the school should have noticed and one of the teachers have taken down before anyone in the vicinity read it.

This is where they drew the line.

"What are you going to do?"

"I know I said I would not use my ghost powers for personal gain, but this time I'm making an exception." Danny growled and made his way to the bathroom. He quickly changed and flew through the school invisibly keeping an open link with Sam so she could inform Tucker what was happening and knew that they were following him on his search for his main culprit; Paulina.

He found her leaned against her locker speaking with Star over something that he didn't care to find out and flew straight into her body easily overpowering her. "Uh, Star." He said though Paulina's voice came through loud and clear demonstrating his clear hold over the Latina. "I have to make a huge announcement. I'm going to go to the radio station for the school in the gym. Make sure everyone's listening in."

He turned and ran Paulina's body to the radio station still set up in the gym and climbed the stairs to the top and threw open the door to find the DJ – a senior – sitting peacefully with his headphones around his neck.

"Hi, I have a huge announcement I have to make, could I use the intercom thingy?" He made sure to try and bat her eyes hoping it would work to make the guy give it up.

"Uh, sure." Danny could see his eyes roam over Paulina's body and he wondered how she didn't get sick of that day in and day out. Of course he did it when he was younger but now he had Sam to really focus on. "Go right ahead, Paulina. You can use anything. Just press that on button right there and the mic will broadcast what you say to the whole school."

"Thanks." He responded sweetly in her voice and pressed the button for mic on "Hi everybody!" He tried to make sure she sounded cheerful and chipper still. "I just wanted to make a huge announcement about what I've said. What I told everyone about Danny Fenton, Sam Manson and Tucker Foley is a rumor! Ha! Got you guys didn't I! But it's true they never had threesomes ever. Also Sam Manson only broke up with Danny Fenton because her parents made her and are making her date this horrible guy. I should know I met him at some lame dinner party with the mayor last night. Also! I'm to anyone who knows about those meetings behind the bleachers I just want to say that to all the _people_ that I've had back there that I would love to do it all again if you're up for it. Have a nice day!"

And with that he turned off the mic and walked Paulina's body out of the DJ box and back to the main hallway where he flew out of her and to the guys' bathroom to change back into his human self and find Sam and Tucker. Now anyone would be talking about was Paulina. Which was her goal wasn't it? Okay it was cruel but what she did was just as bad as what he did. If not worse. And anyway only the people smart enough to figure out what he meant when he said 'people' would put Paulina on edge.

"Dude! That was awesome!" Tucker held up his hand for a high-five that Danny obliged to.

"I don't know." Sam mused staring down the hallway as everyone moved towards Paulina. "I think karma's going to come back and bite us in the ass hard. And probably neither of yours asses. It'll be mine on the line here."

"She got what she deserved Sam. Plus with her going at it with pretty much the entire school, they were bound to find out soon enough anyway." Danny said. "Plus it's nice sometimes to put the populars back in their places. And I wasn't very obvious about it. I'm pretty sure most of the school will just be confused about it." Nobody messed with his girl and got away with it.

The rest of the day was spent answering rumor questions and they pretty much doused the fire on them as the school day came to a final close. Paulina wasn't faring much better being on the now bad end of the questions and humiliation that the trio had been in earlier in the day.

After school Sam drove them to their respective homes and when she made her way into her own house to be greeted at the bottom of the stairs with both her mother and father.

"What?"

"We heard that you and Danny Fenton have broken up your little romantic thing. But you're still going to be friends?" Her father questioned.

"Yes, I broke it off with him. He was very understanding about the whole situation that's going on. And we both agreed that we'll just be friends. Now can I go start on my homework?"

"If you broke up then why are you still wearing that necklace?" Pamela asked her.

"Uh, because I actually bought it. Well the pendant anyway, the actual necklace part was Jazz's." She hoped that this lie would work. She'd have to talk to Charlie and explain a different reasoning for keeping the necklace on so it wouldn't get back to her parents that she didn't actually buy it.

"You're not going to take it off?" Jeremey asked of her.

She rolled her eyes, "No. And I don't see why I should. I bought it because I liked the way it looked. So I'm not taking it off."

"Okay then." Pamela nodded her head. "As long as it doesn't hold any relationship value we'll let it go."

"Finally." She muttered and moved past them to the stairs and made her way up to her bedroom. Once she set down all of her belongings she made her way to her grandmother's room to find her working on one of her puzzles at a table set up in front of one of her large windows.

"Hey, grandma. Can I talk to you really quickly?" She asked as she shut the door quietly.

"I think I know exactly what you want to talk with me about bubela." She turned a sad face up to look at her and Sam felt her shoulders sag as she moved to sit in one of the chairs next to the table filled with puzzle pieces.

"What am I going to do? I've already told them that I've broken up with Danny but I know that can't go through with this. This isn't who I am, grandma." She drew her knees up to her chest and watched Ida's fingers move over the puzzle pieces again looking for the best fit.

"Have you truly broken up with him?"

Sam sighed and let her head rest on her knees. "No. But I am not letting them pull me away from Danny or Tucker. They're too important to me. But me and Danny are going to date in secret. Or at least as close as we can get to dating." She let out a long breath. "I just don't know what to do and that never happens! I always know how to work through these problems."

"You do know what to do, Sam. Take a deep breath and tell me what conclusions you've already come to. I'm sure you've already spoken them over with Danny and Tucker." Her grandma's voice was smooth and soft that Sam knew instantly that whatever plans she told Ida that she'd be on her side and willing to help to matter what.

"Well, we already talked about the dating in secret thing. Which will be hard, but I think we can do it. Because it's not like we're embarrassed about ourselves it's mom and dad, which gives us a better incentive to work harder at keeping it a secret. But we decided if that didn't work I'd runaway to spend a few nights with Jazz if anything would happen and let mom and dad cool off and figure something out from there. And I will too. I'm putting the money I'm going to eventually earn from my drawings into a separate account like we discussed and I'll use whatever money's in there to make sure that I don't have to come back. But I don't want to run away. _I don't run away_. I confront things head on and I've tried that but they won't listen. I figure that I'm just going to have to keep up this charade up until I turn eighteen."

"I see." Her grandma popped a piece into its place and began looking for the next one. "You most definitely do know what you are going to do, so do not let the heaviness of this situation sit on you like it is."

"But…"

"You are going to have to play along with them until you turn eighteen next August. When this happens I'm going to be turning part of the reigns of the company over to you. You will legally be an adult and part CEO to the company meaning that your parents are unable to make you do anything. I still have a hand in the money, which they seemed to have forgotten, and you will never have to worry about living arrangements if you decide it's best to walk away for a while. I will back you 100% no matter what you do, bubela. And I believe that you will be able to make it through this."

Sam sat there letting her grandmother's words sink in. Letting the warmth and sternness with which she spoke comfort that gnawing feeling deep within her chest that told her that she didn't have a handle on the situation ease off. The information about her taking over the company wasn't new news to her but she was happy to hear that it was still on track just the same.

' _She's on our side too.'_ Danny spoke happily in her mind and a sense of ease came over him as well and it helped her relax even more into the chair.

' _Yeah. I knew she would be but it's nice to hear her say it aloud.'_ Sam looked up to her grandmother who was still focused on her puzzle. "Thank you."

"I promised myself that I wouldn't let this happen to you. You and Danny are like puzzle pieces." She held up two singular pieces and placed them together. "You fit so perfectly. And you connect with only a the few surrounding pieces. Jazz, Tucker, myself." She picked up three more pieces and arranged them all around the two pieces that demonstrated her and Danny.

"But when you try to fit a piece that you think might work, but you know it won't but try it anyway, the picture crumbles and looks odd." She picked up a random piece and tried to attach it to 'Sam's puzzle piece' but it wouldn't fit on whichever side she chose. "Everyone has their true puzzle, Sammy, and their perfect fit. You've already found yours and I couldn't be happier. I don't want what happened with me to happen to you."

Sam smiled and got up from her chair and gave her more affectionate grandmother a hug. "I love you. Thank you." She kissed her forehead and pulled away again.

"You're growing into an even stronger young woman that I ever dreamed. I just hope that I'm able to stay long enough to watch you walk down the aisle to that nice young man."

"Grandma!" She smiled and lightly swatted her on her shoulder, a blush coming to her cheeks as she heard Danny's laughter in her head.

Ida was chuckling as well. "Now none of that," She waggled a finger at her, her eyes playfully looking up at Sam. "Any injuries could send me straight to my death bed." She threw her head back and hand up to her forehead dramatically.

Sam chuckled and shook her head, "Yeah you keep telling yourself that."

Ida laughed but moved her head back to its normal position. "Alright, go on, get your homework done."

"Alright, I'm going."

She knew talking to her would always make her feel better. That's the thing that she loved about her grandma the most; her ability to word things in the best way to make you understand and appreciate what you were doing. She made her way back to her room and pulled out her homework with Danny asking if she could go over it with him tonight since he was caught up fighting a few ghosts at the moment.

' _Need any help?'_

' _No, I'm good for right now. But we'll need to go on patrol later tonight. Think you can sneak away?'_

' _Yeah. I'll get out a little early so I can help you with homework.'_

' _Awesome. Oh, shit. Okay focus now.'_

Sam smiled and shook her head. But her happiness didn't last long as a knock on her open door revealed Charlie standing there with a bright smile on his face. Damn it, she almost forgot that they were living here for the week.

* * *

 **October 1** **st** **, 2014**

 **Wednesday**

 **Casper High School**

 **7:48 a.m.**

The next morning they all made their way through the hallways of Casper High making their way to homeroom once again for another blaringly boring – or at least they hoped – day of higher education. Danny lagged behind a bit, still extremely tired from the night's ghost fights. But since Tucker and Sam had been with him last night to help he didn't have to stay out as long as he would have if they hadn't. It was relatively normal, or as normal as a day could be with the rumors still running around about them and Sam and Charlie and now with Paulina and her announcement of her sexuality, voices were high.

They were almost to Homeroom/ English with Mr. Lancer when they caught Paulina making her way through the crowd parting like the red sea as usual for her. Her blue eyes sparking with rage her mouth seemed to be set in a snarl.

"Uh, she does _not_ look pleased to see us." Tucker whispered.

"I think she's glaring at Sam." Danny whispered back.

"You!" Paulina screeched pointing her finger in Sam's face as she got closer. Sam held her ground though ready for whatever verbal assault came her way. But a verbal assault never came. A resounding SLAP echoed through the hallway making everyone stop and stare at the event unfolding in front of them.

Sam gasped and her hand went up to her cheek where Paulina's hand seemed to be burned onto her skin with the amount of force she put behind the slap. She heard Danny growl from beside Tucker but she trusted him to hold Danny back, though he was spitting insults at Paulina in his mind for hitting her. This was her fight not Danny's for whatever Paulina was blaming her for.

"You, _bitch_! He's _mine_ and you better keep your dirty paws off him! I don't know what voodoo magic you used, but take it off, because _he's mine, you slut_." And with that Paulina turned on her heels and stormed down the hallway toward their Homeroom door.

"What just happened?" Sam asked looking up at Danny and Tucker. She removed her hand from her cheek and she could see herself reflected in Danny's mind. It didn't look good. Her already pale skin didn't help with the large red mark that now marred her face and sent red splotches across the rest of her face. "Crap that isn't good."

"Hey Mikey!" Tucker interrupted her thought process as he caught the shoulder of the shorter boy who was walking past them. "Do you know what Paulina was talking about?"

Mikey looked between them all a bit scared which was odd considering he had always been very nice and open to all of them. When his eyes settled on Sam she saw his features turn from nervousness to one of disgust. "It's all in the paper and over the news." He said not looking away from her.

"What is? I have no idea what you're talking about." She huffed.

"Can you pull up whatever it is?"

"You mean she hasn't told you?" Mikey looked at Tucker shocked. "I'm so sorry, dude." He said to Danny before pulling out his IPhone.

"What are you talking about?" Danny and Sam asked at the same time.

"This." Mikey handed his phone to Tucker and Danny and Sam crowded around it to get a better look at what was on it.

 **Phantom and Human Girlfriend; Who Knew?**

Below the headline was a crystal clear picture of Danny as Phantom holding an arm around Sam's waist as she looked up at him as his own looked the other way. They were in the park near the playground and it was most definitely dark.

"What!" They all exclaimed looking at the picture then back up at themselves before looking down at the picture. Fear sky rocketed between her and Danny but she wasn't sure where it started from. Tucker scrolled down past the picture and they read the caption associated with it.

 _A photo of Amity Park's ghostly hero, Danny Phantom was sent to us from an anonymous source. Though we do know that the photo is of Phantom with Samantha Manson, heiress to the Manson fortune and was taken a few nights ago._

 _Is our resident ghost hero falling hard for a human companion and if so what about Miss Manson? Sources say that she and one Charles Wellingswood are to be engaged soon. Is this another hoax or is there going to be a fight over a human girl that we've only dreamed of seeing since the novel 'Twiligtht' by Stephanie Meyer?_

"You have to be fucking kidding me."

"I told you karma would bite me in the ass."

 **October 1** **st** **, 2014**

 **Wednesday**

 **Casper High School**

 **7:56 a.m.**

* * *

Thank you guys again for your reviews! And I can't wait to see what you have to say about this chapter! I would love to see a minimum of **7 reviews** again! And I know we can do it! I love you guys so much and your continued support for this story!

 *****Answers to reviews:**

 **SamXDanny:** Ah! I loved your review it made me so happy and I'm so excited to see that you're excited to see what happens with this instead of disappointed. Yes Danny is her soulmate and I hope you liked the puzzle analogy I had Ida use ;) His birthday with Jazz will be coming up soon, but we have to get through the rest of this torturous week for our trio first :)

 **Lazy Chipmunk:** Never too early! I really hope they get married someday too ;)

 **ShadowDragon357:** Ugh! So I finally was able to message you back sorry about that. I got hit with a virus in the middle of the week. Anyway I hope the age thing at the top helped explain things. I sometimes forget that it's different for some people around the US, which is weird since I have family that live on the east coast and that's done the same way for school like you said. (that sentence made no sense but I think you got what I meant). Yeah I sort of touched on the whole thing that Sam really needs to give her consent to marry. But if her parents can get her to sign a marriage contract before she turns eighteen then she's stuck. I tried to do as much research I could on it and that's kind of what I came up with, with a few tweaks for this story. Meetings between all the boys will be in the next chapter!

 **Snoopykid:** hahahaha yes! Those Rat Eating Sludge Monkies! Lol loved it when I read this and it totally made my day :)

 **Great:** yeah the poison thing has been running through my mind for the ectoranium thing. But we all have to wait and see since there hasn't been a confrontation with Vlad yet. But don't worry that's coming. Finally! I feel like I've been waiting for ever to get to this point and the confrontation with Vlad. But not yet. Yeah, I hate arranged marriages too, no worries about that. But I've see this done so much that I really wanted to try my hand at it.

 **Savirox:** I love hating them too!

 **Phantom Fire1:** Well I know that you said my plot was shot to hell. But I really kind of would like a bit more faith in you. Just because I'm doing something that is all over the fandom doesn't mean it's going to turn out horrible. I'm sorry if I lost you as a reader because of this. But I kind of like the idea and really wanted to try my own way of doing it.

 **Captiolblonde:** Thank you so much for your review! I always love hearing from you. And yes, an arranged marriage. I'm excited that you've put your faith in me to see what I can do with this part of the story. And you'll have to wait and see how long this guy sticks around for. Yeah I love Tucker too, he's so cute!

 _ ****SONG LYRICS EXPLAINED****_

 **Chapter 12: Throw me in the deep end, watch me drown**

 **Knock me out, knock me out**

 **Saying that I want more, this is what I live for**

 **Hold me down – Halsey**

Summary: Danny's in the GIW headquarters being tortured.

I used these lyrics because Danny has been thrown into the deep end of the GIW the worst part and they're waiting to see how much they can do to crack him. And 'Saying that I want more, this is what I live for' shows that he's just a ghost to them and that he's only there right now so they can get information out of him and he's just a stupid ghost they can experiment on.

 **Chapter 13: The gnashing teeth and criminal**

 **Tongue's conspire against the odds**

 **But they haven't seen the best of us yet**

 **This is Gospel – Panic!**

Summary: Danny's ID number is the title (32936) because it demonstrates how locked up he truly is and the worst part of the GIW. Jazz, Tucker and Sam rescue him

I used this song because they are all going against the grain and the worst odds to get Danny out of there alive and without them getting caught. But the GIW don't know what's going to hit them when they all come in and sneak Danny out and they still haven't seen the best of team Phantom but they don't know that.

 **Chapter 14: We're the underdogs, in this world alone**

 **I'm a believer, got a fever running through my bones**

 **We're the alley cats, and they can throw their stones**

 **They can break our hearts, they won't take our souls**

 **Empty Gold – Halsey**

Summary: memories to waste is the title chapter. Learnt that Danny has some memory loss. Jazz gets her tea and they learn what the GIW did to Danny and what they're really planning. (To take down the Ghost Zone again).

They are the underdogs they have always been told that they are to stay down and they will rise alone but still strong because they know that they are powerful and they will get through this set back and deal with the GIW. Their souls are strong through and through and together they will not break as shown through the action of pulling Danny out of the GIW headquarters. They are all sly and they are waiting for the GIW and when they attack no matter what they do Team Phantom will beat them back.

 **Chapter 15: Oh I don't wanna grow up, wish I'd never grown up**

 **It could still be simple**

 **Oh darling, don't you ever grow up**

 **Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little**

 **Oh darling, don't you ever grow up**

 **Never Grow Up - Taylor Swift**

Summary: We learn that the GIW just 'let' Danny go. Danny has his first flashback in school. Find out that Mr. and Mrs. Foley know about Danny being Phantom and are okay with it. Find out the weapon of mass destruction the GIW are building.

This song just shows how much the trio has grown up and everything that they have to deal with compared to everyone else. They really don't want to grow up but know that they have and they are older beyond their years with everything they've dealt with. And Sometimes they wish someone could just take over for them for a little bit but it won't happen.

 **Chapter 16: I wanna remember the shape of your lips**

 **Cause I wouldn't miss breathing as much as your kiss**

 **If the streets were on fire, well, we'd never know**

 **We'd be lost in each other instead of the smoke**

 **End of the World – Great Big World**

Summary: Knight in shining armor is the title and we all know that means Danny. Danny and Sam finally get together!

This song is just to represent how deep their love goes that no matter what they will always have this burning passion for the other that no one can take away. And mainly I just thought that it fit them perfectly because without the other they'd never be as powerful or confident as they are now.

 **Chapter 17: Happy ever after**

 **How could I ask for more?**

 **A lifetime of laughter**

 **At the expense of the death of a bachelor**

 **Death of a Bachelor – Panic!**

Summary: Everyone finds out about them being together and their first date and their link comes back. Chapter title: Connection of Souls.

I wanted to do the whole song 'Death of a bachelor' but that couldn't be done. But I just wanted to represent again that they were going to be together and ending anyone else's chances with them. That they would eventually have a happily ever after because they will always come back to the other.

 **Chapter 18: In these coming years**

 **Many things will change**

 **But the way I feel**

 **Will remain the same**

 **Lay us down**

 **We are in love**

 **The end of all things – Panic!**

Summary: Minds, bets and titles is the chapter title (I really couldn't figure something out so I summed up the story with those words). Everyone at school finds out about them. The bet with Dash. And a closer look at their link. As well as their talk with Clockwork.

No matter what happens Danny and Sam will love each other and nothing can change that. No matter what they have to pull through they will do it together with Tucker and Jazz at their backs ready to help. Things are going to change obviously since they're growing older and the threat of being the ghost king hangs over Danny's head but that won't change how they feel for the other.

 **Chapter 19: There's never air to breathe**

 **There's never in-betweens**

 **These nightmares always hang on past the dream**

 **Impossible year – Panic!**

Summary: Nightmares and Confessions. They each finally find out about the link and they sort of talk about it. And Danny's being stubborn.

The lyrics 'these nightmares always hang on past the dream' was one of my real focus points for this story because the trios lives are pretty much a living nightmare. That no matter what they do they will always be dealing with something or someone who is going to try and push them out of the way. Nightmares are an everyday occurrence for them. They never get time to just relax they are always on the go.

 **Chapter 20: If you wanna start a fight**

 **You better throw the first punch**

 **Make it a good one**

 **The Good, the Bad and the Dirty – Panic!**

Summary: Forgotten Touch is the chapter title. Danny and Sam's argument about keeping the link. Danny and Sam have another date and Tucker is secretly working on something. The GIW attack Danny using Chaser as bait.

These lyrics work two ways. One with Danny and Sam and their argument. That the other one is starting this fight and if they want their way they better make the first hit a good one otherwise nothing is going to get resolved. And it works for the fact that the GIW are baiting Phantom now. And they are throwing the first punch but they've thrown a sucky one and Danny is challenging them that if they're going to get into this fight they better start off on a good foot because it won't be worth his time because he has too much on his plate.

 **Chapter 21: They think I'm insane, they think my lover is strange**

 **But I don't have to fucking tell them anything, anything**

 **And I'm gonna write it all down, and I'm gonna sing it on stage**

 **But I don't have to fucking tell you anything, anything**

 **Strange Love – Halsey**

Summary: Arrangement. We learn that Sam is now in an arranged marriage with someone. Also Vlad still has an arrangement with Skulker and he is stealing ectoranium from the GIW. Sam and Danny have a small get together because it's his birthday but interrupted by Technus.

I chose these lyrics to focus on Sam and what her parents think of Danny and her together at first. I thought the words 'insane' 'strange' 'don't have to fucking tell them anything' really represented them all equally. But then I thought of it and it works well in the fact that we don't know what's going on with Vlad and he's being completely safe guarded right now. And they know that if they go and confront him he won't 'tell them anything' and that though they think he's insane right now he's clearly too clever to figure out at the moment. And the world is his stage while they are all his pieces on the chess board.


	23. Gossip Overshadows the Truth

Authors Note at the bottom!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or the lyrics to the song, Novocaine by Fall Out Boy

* * *

 **Cast them out because this is our culture**

 **These new flocks are nothing but vultures**

 **Because they took our love and they filled it up**

 **Filled me up with Novocaine and now I'm just numb**

 **Now I'm just numb**

 **Don't' mind me I'm just a son of a gun**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Gossip Overshadows the Truth**

 **Word count: 6,097**

 **3/3/16**

* * *

 **October 1st, 2014**

 **Wednesday**

 **Casper High School**

 **7:56 a.m.**

"This cannot be happening. How'd they even get this picture in the first place?" Danny asked his voice not hiding the slight panic that was rising within him.

"I don't know. But can I have my phone back?" Mikey said giving Danny a sad look. "I'm sorry man."

Tucker peeled the phone from Danny's grasp and handed it back to Mikey. "Thanks." He threw a disgusted look at Sam, which wasn't like him, before turning around and walking the rest of the way to their homeroom Mr. Lancer.

"I wanna know who did this." Sam growled and pulled out her own phone to look up the story.

"Can you figure out anything from the photo?" Danny turned and asked Tucker just as the minute warning bell rang.

"Not a lot without being at my computer, but I'll find out what I can." He said and they made their way into their classroom.

Paulina who was seated in the front corner glared Sam down as she made her way to her seat. Dash was loudly discussing with Kwan about Phantom's mentality and how could he try to be with someone so dark and dreary and weird. But what got to Sam the most was the constant staring. And it wasn't regular, shocked staring like yesterday; no, this was disgusted sneering glares and no whispered words. It made her uncomfortable, but she tried her best to ignore them. They didn't know what was really going on.

"The Notebook, people, quiet down." Mr. Lancer announced himself after the bell rang and everyone had found their seats. "The classroom is no place for gossip. Sam," Mr. Lancer called turning to her as she pulled out a notebook for them to pass notes in.

"Yes?"

"You are wanted in the office. Leave your things here."

She growled to herself as the classroom got riled up at this information and Lancer worked to calm everyone down. "It has to be the GIW." She looked at Danny and Tucker.

"Or your parents." Tucker supplied.

"Or both." She grumbled and got up from her seat. "I'll let you know." She moved up the aisle ignoring the jabs and glares people were throwing her.

"Take notes for me when English starts. I'm going with Sam." Danny told Tucker who nodded in understanding.

When Sam arrived at the front office she could practically cut the tension with a knife when she opened the door.

"Principal Ishiyama is ready for you." The head secretary told her warily. Sam rolled her eyes and walked down the small hallway and into her office.

 _'Geeze, they could at least give you the benefit of the doubt._ ' Danny said in her head.

 _'Like our society falls under that code of conduct.'_ She opened the door to the principal's office and mentally groaned. Principal Ishiyama was sitting at her desk, her parents sat in the chairs on the other side and she recognized two GIW Agents standing just to the side of the Principal of Casper High: Agent Mendoza and Agent Z.

"Sam." Principal Ishiyama said and motioned to the empty seat next to her parents. "Why don't you take a seat."

She did as calmly and carefully as possible, keeping an eye on the Agents. _'I don't like that they're here.'_ She had to agree with Danny that having the GIW here to talk with her over this matter was not good.

"Have you seen the news?" Agent Mendoza stepped forward and questioned her.

"I have," She locked eyes with him. "And honestly I'm just as confused about this as you all are."

"Then you are telling us that you're not in a relationship with Phantom?"

"You're not in a relationship with Phantom?" Her mother asked the same time as the GIW.

"No!" She looks from Agent Mendoza and to her parents scared yet stern faces. "No, and nothing has ever happened between us. It's all made up."

"Then how do you explain this picture of the two of you?" Jeremy asked and handed her a printed out, blown up photo of the one that she saw on the page with the article about her and Danny possibly being a couple.

 _'Tell them that I saved you. I do it all the time with other people._ ' Danny suggested in her mind just as she thought of it herself.

' _Yes, I know.'_ She told him mentally. "I'm not lying. Phantom did save me. Those were the clothes I was wearing Monday night."

"You were supposed to be in bed, young lady." Jeremy reprimanded.

Sam rolled her eyes. "Yeah and I snuck out and went for a walk."

" _Samantha."_ Pamela's tone was sharp. "You know better than to go for one of your _'walks'_ so late at night."

"I do know, but I just had to get out of the house. To think. And anyway it's done now, I've already done it."

"Tell us what happened, Miss Manson." Agent Mendoza said, trying to open the conversation.

Sam glared at him and Danny growled in her head but she made sure she spoke normally, not wanting to get into it with the GIW and her parents in the same room. "I left my house and was walking down the street towards the park. It's far, but that's where I always go." Which technically was true. The 'walks' that she went on were usually her and the boys fighting ghosts. But her parents didn't need to know that.

"Anyway, I was so focused in my own mind that I hadn't realized that I had walked into the middle of a fight with Phantom and…"

' _Technus.'_ Danny supplied. _'He was out that day, it'll be more believable.'_

"The tech ghost, Technus. And I was pulled out of the way by Phantom when Technus was coming at me. He told me to stay out of the way to not get hurt and he finished Technus off, sucking him up into that thermos thing he's always seen carrying around. Afterwards he came back towards me and asked if I was okay. When I said I was, he left. And that's that."

"Then explain the photo." Agent Z was the first to come around and speak.

Sam shrugged, "I don't know how to explain the photo. I didn't see any reporters or any cameras. And I don't know how someone could have gotten so close to me or him without either of us noticing."

For once in their lives her parents were not speaking. They only looked at her with anger and disappointment. If she hadn't known how they operated she would have thought they weren't as mad as she thought they were, but she knew that when they devoted to silence that they were extremely pissed off and were waiting to blow up when they didn't have other company to be concerned over.

She glanced over at the GIW, but she couldn't tell if they believed her story or not as their faces stayed in the concerned yet hardened features.

"Are you typically this unaware of your surroundings, Miss Manson?" Agent Mendoza questioned.

Sam shook her head, and focused on the sunglasses covering the leading Agents eyes. "No, but I had a lot on my mind and got distracted."

"And you go on these walks often?" Agent Z asked.

"Yes, she does." Pamela answered before Sam could, worry leaked through her voice.

"Since that is such a common occurrence, and we would not want something like this to happen again, I would suggest doing some sessions on fighting ghosts." Agent Mendoza took a stance and Sam knew he was looking at her and not her parents.

Danny mentally snorted in her head, _'Yeah, they should be taking lessons from you._ '

"I don't think that I really need to do that since I already know Martial Arts and have a black belt in Kyokushin Karate and Aikido."

"Considering we will start learning a few ghost fighting techniques in our class it would not be a problem to stay after and go over a few things, considering fighting ghosts is different from fighting a human." Agent Z offered. Danny mentally snorted in her mind again.

"No, I think regular class time will be sufficient for, Samantha."

"No, that's okay." Sam did her best not to look at her parents in shock. But they had never been a fan of all the ghosts and fighting and whatnot that went on. She knew that once her grandma passed away they would officially move away to Chicago to not have to deal with the ghosts anymore.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." Her and her parents agreed simultaneously. The Agents looked at one another and Sam saw Principal Ishiyama wring her hands nervously together.

"One last question then, Miss Manson. Is Phantom pressuring you or controlling you?"

' _What!'_ Danny growled loudly in her head making her own anger spike for even suggesting what they did.

"No! And that doesn't seem like Phantom anyway. He protects Amity Park, _especially_ more than you do."

"Samantha." Her parents reprimanded but the GIW didn't even flinch.

"If you are unable to vocally tell us you can use signs. Blink your eyes three times for 'yes' and two times for 'no'. Or scratch your nose for 'yes' and rub your eyebrow for 'no'."

"I don't have to do any of those things." She wanted to control the bite in her voice but her control was slipping with the added anger of Danny flowing into her. "I am _not_ being controlled my Phantom. We are _not_ together. And this picture." She picked it up, "is _not_ about me and him having some secret affair." She tore it in half and placed it back on Principal Ishiyama's desk, her yes never left Agent Mendoza's.

"Alight, Miss Manson." Agent Mendoza nodded. "You can go back to class then. We would like to speak with your parents alone."

' _I don't believe him for one second.'_

' _Me either.'_ Sam agreed with Danny, but got up from her chair anyway. "Fine."

"We'll talk at home, Samantha." Her mother said, a stern look in her eye.

"Sure." She sighed out and moved out of the door, leaving it open. She turned back down the hallway but ducked into the doorway open a few feet from the Principal's office where the office supplies were held so she could listen in to their conversation without being caught.

"This is not Sam's fault. We believe that Phantom is in fact overpowering her and controlling what she has told you and us today."

"Oh, thank the Lord." She heard her father sigh. "I don't think we could handle this if Sammy was doing this of her own free will."

Sam rolled her eyes and she could practically tell Danny was doing the exact same thing.

"I'm sorry that this situation has occurred but we're fairly certain that Phantom is controlling her. We took readings while she was in the room and they sky rocketed for residual ectoplasmic waves."

"What can we do?" Her mother asked.

"We will need to recapture Phantom and speak with him. And if he will not release his hold on her we will have to expunge his essence and essentially his control over her ourselves." Agent Z told them. "Has she been acting differently than normal? Aggressive? Angry? Alone a lot?"

She heard her parents gasp, "Yes. For some time actually."

Sam rolled her eyes again. There were reasons for that, mainly the fact that they were trying to marry her off! But did they see that? No.

"That will be enough to be able to legally expunge his essence from Sam but it won't be able to be done until next week. Paper work will have to be brought up and we'll have to make sure our devices are up and functioning since this hasn't happened in a long while." Agent Mendoza told them.

' _They're not gonna get close enough to lay a single hand on you.'_ Danny growled as her parents asked the Agents what they should do.

"Act normal. Don't get her too riled up. Make sure she goes about her normal day and not disrupt anything. We don't know how deep Phantom's influence is on her and if something were to upset her and therefore him we don't know what he could do to her if he found out we were on to him before we were ready to remove his presence." She heard Agent Z tell them.

"And you'll let us know when everything is ready?"

"We'll call you."

"Thank you, so much." She heard her mother say and then rustling of clothes and chairs made her realize their conversation was over. She quickly vacated the closet and moved fast through the office, not bothering to check with the secretary to get a hall pass, and rushed her way back to Lancer's class.

' _So they have a device like my parents' Ghost Catcher then.'_ Danny mused aloud in her head. He had been quite for some time but she figured that was so he could also hear what was going on, through her mind.

' _Looks like. We'll need to be extra careful until we can either convince them I'm not being controlled by you or we damage their version of the Ghost Catcher.'_ She told him as she opened the door to the classroom and made her way inside. Lancer looked up from the chalkboard where he was making a list of literary concepts for the current novel they were reading in class, The Catcher in the Rye. He gave her a nod as she walked back in and took her seat next to Tucker who was biting his lip nervously as he looked at her. She noticed that Danny did his best to focus on writing the information Lancer was giving them in his notebook to make it seem that he was 'mad' at her. She ignored the looks and glares and sneers she was given as she pulled out her notebook from her backpack and got ready for the remaining 30 minutes of class.

A note landed on her desk from Tucker asking her what all happened in there. She hastily wrote down what happened and passed it back to him. He read it over and wrote a reply back.

 **It's a good thing we're going to St. Louis this weekend. You know, getting away from all this craziness to think. And we can discuss options with Jazz.** **\- T**

' _He has a point. But then again, if I'm not here and you're not here. Then the GIW are_ really _going to think that I'm overshadowing you.'_

' _They already think that. But you do have a point.'_ She wrote down what Danny told her to Tucker and passed the note back to him, then wrote down what Lancer was adding to the board.

 **True. Danny's right but it really shouldn't matter with the GIW like you said since they already think that Danny's overshadowing you** **anyway** **. – T**

' _We're going to have to be careful about how we go about this. And we'll need to figure out what your parents are really thinking about this whole situation as well.'_ Danny glanced over at her and Tucker before looking back to the board. _'We really can't discuss this well at school; we'll have to do it later.'_

She agreed with him on that fact and wrote down to Tucker what the plan was. He nodded and stuffed their piece of paper with their notes into the front compartment on his backpack.

The rest of the morning passed by uneventfully compared to what could have been happening. In Math her and Danny had to sit away from the other but they made up for it because of their mind link. In History they sat with Tucker in between them both. And in Biology her and Tucker sat together like normal. Though unlike in the other classes where most people threw looks her way or made snide comments to themselves about what was going on, Bio was the first time someone actually came up to their table and told Tucker he was an idiot for being friends with her still.

The basketball player didn't know what hit him when Tucker stood up roughly and glared at him – so unlike his usual easygoing nature and told him, "That photo is nothing but a fraud or a way for the Media to start pulling Phantom out. Sam has done nothing wrong and her and Phantom aren't dating. Phantom saved her and that's that."

Of course the basketball player only rolled his eyes and said, "Whatever," before moving back to his seat. After that no one else came up to either of them. Though, with the looks Paulina kept throwing her way in the hallways made Sam want the Latina to confront her, even if it was just because she wanted to smack that sneer off her face.

For lunch they decide to eat away from prying eyes in the library. Sam had brought her food but she waited in the line for cafeteria food with them anyway.

Danny focused on keeping his attention on Tucker as he talked about the new upgrades he was expecting for his PDA to come out in October. Most people were throwing him pitying looks which he was not a fan of. Even if this had been something real that had happened and he wasn't Phantom and Sam had really cheated (which is laughable at any point), he would still be outraged at these people. They didn't know him or Sam or Tucker and yet they were now trying to be a part of their lives because of drama. He barely knew any of these people yet they wanted him to talk to them about what was going on and telling him that they were 'here of him'. He rolled his eyes at them; he didn't need or want their 'pity'. And he really wished they'd stop going back and forth between the pitying looks they gave him to the disgusted a shameful looks they were giving Sam.

He was distracted from these thoughts when his breath stopped suddenly and released in a cold puff, and a shiver ran down his spine. "Great." He grumbled. He looked around the cafeteria and outside the windows, but there was no ghost to be found. "I'll be back. Don't wait up." Danny turned and spoke aloud to Tucker and mentally to Sam through their link before taking his food and walking towards the double doors that led out into the hallway.

Once he was cleared he took three bites from the chicken sandwich they were serving for lunch, before he set the tray down and ran towards the nearest bathroom where he changed and flew up and out of the school. He found out quickly as he did a 360 degree turn above the school to find none other than the Box Ghost trying to steal the boxes from the UPS truck across the street, but the delivery guy was putting up a good fight and not letting his packages go.

He was so not in the mood for this. He moved down to investigate making sure to keep an eye out in case this was another trap by the GIW but he didn't see them anywhere or any inkling of them being close by, but he knew that didn't mean that they might be waiting for him around some corner.

"Would you leave the poor UPS man alone? What happened to terrorizing packing stores for bubble wrap?" Danny questioned, floating down to stand in the air next to the truck where the box ghost and the UPS man had been in a tug-of-war fight over a small brown box.

"The Box Ghost does not need the bubble wrap of doom anymore! The box is what calls to me." He said and tugged hard on the small box, but the UPS guy held on strong.

"Tell him to go annoy George Hanson, I'm way too busy today to deal with him."

"No!" he moaned annoyed, "The Box Ghost must have this box from," He leaned down to examine the name on the label on top, "Amazon for Kelly Jacobs!"

Danny sighed and rolled his eyes pulling out his thermos. _'I'm going to kill her.'_ Sam growled in his head startling him. He hadn't realized he'd been blocking her out so well. He let her essence overcome him and found her in seething rage – which was never good for anyone, whether on the opposite or same side. _'And if she comes back as a ghost I'll extinguish her entire essence'._

' _What did Paulina do now?'_ He asked and popped open the thermos aiming it at the Box Ghost who went back to focusing on his tug-of-war. "Come on, just leave the poor guy alone boxy."

"Never!" He cried and Danny shook his head and sucked in the Box Ghost just as Sam's mind was filled with short two or three worded sentences going around something like: _Stupid Bitch… kill… gonna regret… damn it._

"Thanks, Phantom." The UPS guy said as he took the box that had been the cause of all the trouble and put it back in the truck.

"No problem." Danny shrugged and clipped the thermos back to his belt.

"Yeah that Box Ghost can get pretty annoying though. Hey!" His eyes lit up and he faced Danny once again. "Are you really dating that human girl?"

Danny could feel Sam's anger rise up in him, or maybe that was his own, he wasn't so sure where his emotions and hers started when they were open like this. He folded his arms over his chest and glared the man down, "No. And you can start spreading that around to everybody. I'm not going to be dating a human girl anyway! I saved her from another ghost, that's it." And with that he flew the short distance back into school, hoping Sam hadn't killed Paulina yet.

Though of course when he finally got back into the Cafeteria he was confronted with Sam's inner thoughts and anger in visible actions.

Her and Paulina were in the middle of the cafeteria trying to get a swing in at the other. Dash had a hold of Paulina by her waist as she flailed her arms and feet around trying to get another hit at Sam. Sam herself was aiming her fists for any part of Paulina who was already sporting the beginnings of a black eye, but Sam was in the process of Tucker trying to pull her away. But even though Tucker was larger than her, Sam was ten times stronger than him and kept getting out of his grasp to punch Paulina in the stomach and then received scratches down her exposed arms and a kick to the shin with a high heel. All the while throwing insults back and forth; one nastier than the next.

Danny quickly made his way over to them, knowing that he would be the only one to get Sam away from this fight. Tucker looked away from Sam as he approached and smiled thankfully, but still tried his best to hold onto her. She slipped though, through his fingers again and before Sam could aim a well-placed kick to Paulina's leg, Danny reached out, gripped her hips tight and threw her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

"Danny! Put me down!" She shrieked and pounded his back. Paulina had kept struggling in Dash's arms but everyone looked at Danny like he was crazy.

Sometimes he hated that he was 80% of Sam's impulse control. Though he shouldn't judge since Sam and Tucker were pretty much 75% of his own.

"I don't think so, Manson." Danny quickly turned around in surprise, Sam let out a squeak, to find Ms. Tetslaff standing behind them. "He just made sure that you and Sanchez don't serve in-school suspension. However, I will see you in detention for the next seven days. I don't condone fighting unless necessary and though what's been going on is outrageous, I've expected you two to have a confrontation. Which is why," She handed Danny a pink slip and moved over to Paulina to hand her the same thing, "you two will severe detention and not ISS." And with that she turned and walked back through the throngs of students and to the corner of the cafeteria she had been eating in.

Danny sighed and ignored Sam telling him to put her down aloud and in their minds. "Grab her bag, will ya, Tuck?" Tucker nodded, grabbed Sam's backpack which was a dropped a few feet away before following Danny out of the cafeteria – ignoring all the stares. Danny didn't stop walking until he made it to their lockers. By that time Sam was giving him the silent treatment, though he could feel her anger slowly descending in volume.

When he put her down she folded her arms over her chest and Danny could tell she was happy that he pulled her away but pissed because she was finally getting somewhere with Paulina and he stepped in. He could tell she was tired of all the shit that was said about not just her but all of them.

"What happened?" Danny let Sam go and stir in her mind, knowing she would vocalize her thoughts soon.

"Everything had been fine up until we moved to leave the cafeteria to go sit in the library. We were almost to the doors when Dash tripped me. And then Sam totally just started yelling at him and then Paulina came up and was like," He rose his voice in imitation of her voice, " _'He deserved it for sticking with someone like you.'_ And Sam was like _'you mean someone who actually cares about her friends!'_ and then Paulina said _'no a whore.'_ And Sam was gonna leave it and we were about to leave when Paulina reached out and said _'hey I was talking to you.'_ But Sam moved her arm out and told her not to touch her.

"And then shit just hit the fan. They were throwing insults back and forth and Paulina said that Phantom was only for her and Sam should stick with us, though it was said way more vulgar and then Paulina slapped Sam and Sam went after Paulina. And of course it was just kind of normal stuff and I was cheering Sam on and then I could tell that both of them were really going at it hard and Dash and I started pulling them away. Or at least I tried, you know Sam's a lot stronger than me and then Paulina was able to get out of Dash's arms a few times but mainly she just flailed around, which is how Sam got hit the few times. And then you showed up."

Danny sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose – a habit he picked up from Jazz who started doing it almost a year ago. "Sam, really? After all the times you've told us not to engage Dash or any of the other jocks who push us around?"

Sam shot him a glare, "Pot meet Kettle."

"Look I'm just saying…"

' _I know.'_ She sighed aloud, _'And thanks for stepping in, just anything Tucker was telling me, it was like I couldn't hear him.'_

' _Yeah, I could tell. You were practically incoherent in your thoughts.'_

' _Just this whole thing has got me on edge and then she insulted Tucker and I just lost it after she grabbed me.'_

' _Yeah cause I'm you impulse control._ ' He chuckled and pulled her close and kissed her quickly.

"Have I ever told you guys that your expressions still change when you're talking in your heads?" Tucker asked pulling them from their conversation.

"Yeah, I think so." Danny answered pulling away from Sam.

"Thanks, Tucker." Sam gave him a small smile. "I really let my temper get a hold of me back there." Though she didn't like to admit it, she had grown up and realized how to control her temper and not to let it consumer her and if it happened, on how to recognize that she did and not let this action consume her.

"Well at first I was totally all for it." He shrugged and they all moved towards the gym locker rooms to get changed for gym. "But then I was pretty sure you were going to kill her and I really didn't want to see you go away from murder."

Sam chuckled lowly. "As much as I hate her I wouldn't want to spend time because of her. Now you two on the other hand." She pointed at them, "Let's just say, I'm happy you both know better." She laughed loudly at their not-so-shocked, but still slightly surprised faces. "Anyway, we're just going to have to get through the rest of this day and figure out what we're going to do about this scandal. Just so long as you keep me away from that bitch in P.E. I think we'll be okay."

Gym for the trio went almost normal compared to the rest of their day. Now that people saw that Danny was still around Sam and Sam was being very adamant on the fact that her and Phantom were not dating and he had only saved her, was either getting old on them or they were starting to believe her.

Though after gym as they changed in the locker rooms – Danny actually changed in the bathroom stall so no one would see his scars and injuries – Dash decided it was time to let Danny know what he thought about all of this nonsense going on in the news.

"So Fenturd, how's it feel to be cheated on?" He asked and leaned against the lockers at the end of the row.

Danny rolled his eyes from where he'd sat on the bench between the lockers. "I don't know Dash, why don't you tell me?"

' _Nice one.'_

' _Sam!'_ He was not expecting her to be in his head while he and everybody else were in the boys locker room. He didn't want her so see some other dude just walking around. She only laughed at his response.

"Eh, at least it wasn't to Phantom. Even though Paulina does like him a lot." Dash mused to himself then shook his head, "Still not going to beat the fact that your little goth got it on with Phantom and not you." He laughed and the other jocks that had appeared behind him, followed in his lead.

"Nothing happened." Danny cut in, his voice sharp and made the A-list guys stop laughing. "He saved her from a ghost attack. That Technus dude."

Dash turned to look at his friends, "Oh, look the loser's in denial." They laughed and he turned back to Danny and Tucker, "Anyway, still sucks, but at least she finally stepped it up on the coolness factor. Though she's still with your group down in geek central." Dash laughed again and shoved himself off the lockers and started his way towards the door, his friends flowed behind him.

"Well, that was surprising." Tucker said.

Danny turned to look at him with furrowed brows, "What was?"

"He didn't punch you at least once."

"Probably taking pity on poor ole defenseless, naïve, 'cheated' on, Danny Fenton."

' _Are you guys coming or what? The bells about to ring?'_

' _We're coming.'_ Danny sighed and closed his locker door that had been open. "Hurry up, Sam's getting impatient."

"Well, tell her to hold her horses. I'm moving as fast as I can."

The last two classes thankfully passed without incident and though Ghost 101 was incident free of 'Gossip' – it was still being spoken but more quietly than before – they were all handed permission forms for self-defense and ghost dissection.

"Next week Wednesday we will be starting our self-defense and dissection portion of the course." Agent Z told the class as he had started passing the papers around. "We will be learning very basic defense forms in case a ghost attacks you and we will also be bringing in ecto-samples and small ghosts to examine. If you do not bring these forms back by Wednesday, signed you will be participating in an examine that will be different from the one we are taking on Friday and you will be writing a report on the different forms of defense I will be teaching."

The class groaned, but Danny could tell that some people were kind of excited. Especially Valerie. Though his focus wasn't solely on Valerie, he watched Agent Z move about the room and how he refused to look in their groups direction at all. Which he found odd, but hoped that it was because of Sam and Phantom and not because of something else.

"Now today we will be going over our ghost vocabulary with a group of no less than two people and no more than four." Agent Z informed them "Once you are in your groups I will pass around the papers to vocally quiz each other with. This will not be for a grade, however if I hear you talking about something other than this quiz or ghost language then you _will be_ receiving a quiz marking. Go ahead and move to your groups."

Danny, Tucker and Sam paired up and were slightly happy when Valerie who was looking for a group was pulled into one by a friend that was still in the A-list and hadn't stopped being friends with her just because her father lost his job. When Agent Z handed out the papers, they each consisted of different words and phrases that were needed to know on each paper labeled with an A,B or C.

"These are going to be a breeze." Tucker said as he looked over his own list. "Alright, Sam what is the word for 'run'?"

She rolled her eyes and answered, "Nlrufn. Danny what's the word for, 'fear'?"

"Faastr. Tucker, what's the word for 'ghost'?"

"Duh, it's ghesi. Sam, what's the word for 'I'?"

"You're kidding right?" Sam arched her brows at Tucker.

He shook his head. "Nope."

"Fine." She sighed, "Ih. Danny what's the word for 'me'?"

"Mih. Tucker what's the word for 'Boo!'?"

"Buhoofn. Sam, what's the word for 'scare'?"

She huffed and laid her head in her hands, "Anscgene. Do we seriously have to do these? Can't we just focus on our own words?" But she knew that they couldn't. But it didn't make it any less annoying. "Danny, what's the phrase for, 'Fear me."

"Are you kidding me? It's, mih faaster. Tucker, here's a sentence structure question, does ghost language use conjunctions?"

Tucker scoffed, "No. Sam, what does the phrase, 'Thees tii sdmmu' mean in English?"

Sam chuckled and said, "This is stupid. Nice, okay Danny what's 'Ih cdanren waat ruof thees ygad natu sbin ovie oinn' in English?"

"I can't wait for this day to be over." Danny nodded in agreement. "Yeah, me too. Okay how about something from this sheet. Tucker, what are the numbers from one to ten?"

"Great. Okay, let me think over them really quick. Zero is nzrl, then it's: neoi, tzwoi, tdei, rvfup, ffvuef, sci, seeienv, aehct, nne and ennzt."

"Nice, bet you can't go to twenty." Sam said, smirking at him.

"Bet you can't either." Tucker shot back, sticking his tongue out at her. "And you can't cheat by looking in Danny's head." He pointed his finger at her.

"Like I need his help. Unlike you I actually pay attention when we take lessons with Dora."

"Hey! I focus; just, I have to go help them with their advancements in technology."

"Conveniently I might add."

"Okay guys," Danny put his hands up between them both, "Let's relax before we get into one of your famous arguments about our _after school activities_ in the same classroom as someone who likes to _kill_ those after school activities."

They both quieted down and Tucker asked Sam the next question on his list, "How do you say 'weapon'?"

"Just regular weapon? Not something specific?" Tucker nodded, "Okay, that's Wafpf. Danny, what's the word for 'attack'?"

"Agfacnk. Tucker what's…"

"Okay, class that's enough. Good job I heard a lot of correct answers as I walked around the room. Now we'll start by reviewing the words on the list aloud with the whole class and then tomorrow we will be doing Jeopardy to study for the test on Friday."

 **October 1st, 2014**

 **Wednesday**

 **Casper High School**

 **2:15 p.m.**

* * *

I know lame ending :(

Oh my god! You guys I'm so sorry for being absent for almost three weeks! Two weeks ago that Friday or whatever before the next update date, I started to get sick. And I went to the doctor but they said it was a virus and then it his me super hard and then I just couldn't write and figured I'd just post that next Sunday. Well that week I also had exams in all of my class and on top of that I was sick, but getting slightly better by that Wednesday. My exams were on Thursday and Friday. All of them. It sucked.

Then! Thursday morning I woke up and my sickness got worse! And then I had to take my exams. Went to the doctor again and I had a worse virus that they gave me some pills for. But now I'm better! And I don't have exams until like the end of March – but as long as I don't get sick we should be good.

So, nope I'm not dead (thankfully, I practically felt like death warmed over) and I hope to get the next chapter up on Saturday and then post the chapter for this Sunday (Ch. 25) on Sunday. If not Sunday then definitely Monday and then we should be caught up. God it sucked being sick, and I'm sorry my writing isn't as up to par as normal, I'm slightly rushing but trying not to, so if you see anything that I forgot to fix please let me know! And I'll go and fix it :)

Also, I didn't realize how much you guys really loved the Ghost 101 class that I included as a side thing for this story! I'm going to try and a few parts to it, but I'm not a very good teacher like it showed above in this chapter, and I really don't want it to read too blandly. But I'll do my best to get the information across without it seeming like you're sitting in class, lol.

Thank You to all of my reviewers! **Danny Phantom Overlord, snoopykid, ShinyMudkipGal, ShadowDragon357, Blue11msu, SamXDanny, Rocky Rooster, Phantom Fire1, Savirox, italylikespasta12, CaptainDorito, JCScannell, Capitolblonde, Guest, Krusher.**

I love you guys so much! Thank you all for your continued support! (Even the people who didn't review! I love you all too!)

 ******* **Answers to reviews:** **ShadowDragon357, SamXDanny, Phantom Fire1, italylikespasta12, CaptainDorito, Guest**

 **ShadowDragon357:** Sorry I never got back to your emails, but being sick really took a lot out of me :( Anyway, thankfully not dead! Lol Yeah we haven't seen confrontation yet with Phantom and I know you and everyone else is probably really gearing up for it, but you'll just have to wait. But the little bit with Phantom I hoped can tie you and everyone over until the other stuff. :) Oh yeah! Sexual tensions are building! Just not quite yet, it only just happened :( it's my fav part to write ;)

 **SamXDanny:** I am so sorry for updating so late! I always love how excited you are in your reviews and each time I missed Sunday I was always worried about you and I so didn't want to disappoint you or anything about not posting. Again, so sorry! And I know this chapter kinda sucked but hopefully my writing sickness with be over by the time I post ch. 25. Answering your last review: you'll have to wait and see if Charlie and Sam eventually become friends (don't worry I have plans). I know right?! I love trio fluff and the whole 'my boys' thing and 'my girl' from both Danny and Tucker. They're all kind of super possessive over the other :) Ah, proposals…. Well, that's something that may or may not come along in book 3. Maybe.

 **Phantom Fire1:** I'm so sorry if my last statement to you was mean! I'm so so so so sorry! I went back and looked at it and it kinda sounded bitchy and I'm not a bitchy person I promise! Only the characters I write lol :) Besides what happened over these past two and a half weeks I typically update every Sunday. Once summer hits I might (might) start updating twice a week, but that depends on how much I work and the summer classes I'm taking. No need to apologize! :)

 **italylikespasta12:** Thank you so much for your review I had no idea that people were so keyed into the ghost 101! I tried to add a bit in here for your benefit and I'm going to work to try and fit a bit more into the story. I kind of planned it to be a background thing and to kind of only pop up when it was convenient for me in the story, but you're right that's not quite how a story works, so I'm going to try and fit a bit more in there. :) yeah I kinda want them to elope, but Sam knows Danny won't leave Amity Park. He's tied to that place – it's his obsession, that's why getting him away for a few days is extremely hard and taxing.

 **CaptainDorito:** Dude! Totally cool on the late reviews! I understand being busy lol and I'm super-duper happy that you're 'in this story with your heart invested in it'! That just made me melt when I read that! I know I was so mad at Sam's parents as I wrote the chapter, but it had to be done. I'm so happy that you said that about their display of anger, because I was kind of unsure if I downplayed Danny's reaction or not, but I guess I didn't! which is awesome :) Yeah I love seeing Danny with raw anger (I think it's because we all secretly love Dan and seeing that come through sometimes but in our controlled/ good Danny reminds us that he's a total bad boy). Yeah the bisexual thing kinda just came to me and I like the idea of Paulina with Star but then I like her with Dash and I was like… make her Bi! Lol. Yeah I haven't read any stories with that approach either and I hope to explore it further though it will mainly be a back thing in the story and not in the forefront. SO happy that you liked the lyrics!

 **Guest:** Yeah I agree that Vlad needs a cat, too. Thankfully he has Maddie the Cat (She'll make an appearance).


	24. Fighting isn't meant just for Ghosts

***Warning:** 2nd half has crude and horrible language. Remember this is a serious type of piece and though many parts are humorous I'm focusing on the bad too. Which also includes high schoolers incredible potty mouths (it usually gets worse in college, just saying). I don't use this language often except for a few 'fucks' and 'shits' but typically it stays at T-rating and I'm not uping the rating just for these types of chapters.

 ***2 Warning:** Chapter alludes and also blatantly states that two teenagers are having sex. (forewarning).

 **Author's note at bottom.**

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Danny Phantom or the lyrics to the song, Trouble by Halsey . I also do not own any rights to Batgirl or Batman or Robin or Nightwing 'That's DC's business'.

* * *

 **And I've got my mind made up this time**

 **Go on and light a cigarette**

 **Set a fire in my head**

 **Set a fire in my head tonight**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Fighting isn't meant just for Ghosts**

 **Word count: 7,055**

 **3/7/16**

* * *

 **October 1st, 2014**

 **Wednesday**

 **Casper High School**

 **3:40 p.m.**

"So when can we actually meet this guy?" Danny asked as Sam drove out of the school parking lot almost an hour after school had ended. She and Paulina had to serve detention for 45 minutes and Danny and Tucker waited for Sam outside on one of the tables that was set up on part of the front lawn of the school.

Sam sighed and tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, "Tomorrow. He's in Chicago right now anyway, and I really don't want to rock the boat with my parents right now. For the first time in a long while I'm actually scared that any little thing will set them off and I'll be gone. I mean I'd figure out a way back, but I don't want to _have_ to do that."

"We know Sam and tonight while you do that Danny and I'll look over the photo and investigate to see how someone could get that close without notice."

"And we have to figure out how to stop this story in its tracks, because there is no way I'm letting the GIW near me with a copy of a Fenton device. They probably screwed it up anyway trying to make it better or something."

"Not like it would work anyway if it's just you." Danny supplied.

"True." Sam sighed as she pulled up in front of Tucker's house. "You guys just need to focus on figuring out that photo and who took it and who it was given to. And I have to go home and tell my parents that I have detention and to get chewed out over this whole thing." She grumbled.

"Good Luck." Tucker told her has he got out of the car, "We'll let you know what we find out later." And closed the door behind him.

"Just don't let them push you too far." Danny said and leaned forward between the two front seats and kissed her on the cheek. "See you for patrol?"

"Maybe."

"That's all I can ask. Bye, Batgirl."

"Wait," She turned around quickly, stopping when the seatbelt protested against her body. "Batgirl?"

"Yeah." He shrugged his shoulders. "Kind of a punny nickname I was thinking of. 1) You love your bats. 2) You kind of remind me of Batgirl from the Batman comics because you're badass and pretty much a superhero."

"But Barbara Gordon is the sidekick to Batman with Robin. And her and Richard Grayson get together, so wouldn't that mean that I'm either with Tucker or you're actually Robin?"

"I personally think I'm more like 'Nightwing' but whatever. I wasn't really trying to put names to all of us." He shrugged one of his shoulders again. "I don't know."

Sam smiled; sometimes she knew he could be so bashful, "I like it." His face lit up immediately. "But not in public."

"Come on you love birds!" Tucker called from the open doorway. "You can't suck face _all_ day."

Danny rolled his eyes but kissed her on the lips this time. "Deal. See ya, Batgirl." He got out of the car and closed it behind him. Sam watched her boys and made sure they were inside before she drove off towards her doom.

After parking in the garage, she carefully made her way towards the stairs – hoping to make a quick escape and have this conversation later – but just as her foot touched down on the first step, her mother's throat cleared behind her. She turned around slowly to see not only her parents, but her grandma as well. She was happy that Charlie's parents were nowhere in sight.

"Sit down. We have to talk." Her father gestured towards the sitting room.

"No we don't. I've told you everything and it's all the truth. Phantom and I are not having some sort of affair or whatever. I've kept true so far," three days, but who's counting, "on your terms. If I was going to lie about something, it wouldn't be _this_. It'd be something like: me and Danny are eloping or something." At the shocked look on her father's face and the stern look her mother was giving her she realized it might have pushed them a bit too far. "Not that that is happening." She held her hands up defensively. "It was an example. But, not one that's going to happen."

"Don't fret Jer and Pam, I'll talk to her." Ida said and moved her scooter closer to Sam locking eyes with her – amethyst to amethyst.

"Mom, really you don't…"

She turned to look at her son, giving him her 'I got this' look. "You and Pam just make sure to keep the ole Wellingswood's calm. Let's go up to my room, Sam."

Sam shifted her backpack on her back and followed her grandma to the elevator lift located in a small hallway on the side of the house. Sam wasn't sure what her grandma was thinking. Typically she could tell where she stood on something, but her calm demeanor mixed with the small frown that stood out on her face made Sam really nervous. The one person in her family who she didn't want to let down, and this stupid rumor could be a huge disappointment in her eyes.

Her stomach dropped and she tried to open her mouth and tell her grandma that what they were saying wasn't true, but no words followed as the elevator dinged and opened letting them out. She followed quietly behind her and followed Ida into her bedroom, making sure to shut the door behind her.

When she turned around her grandma was already over by the window where her table with the puzzle pieces sat. Sam took off her backpack and set it by the door before taking a seat at the table.

"Sam, I know how…"

"It's not what it looks like." She blurted out, then put her fingers to her mouth to stop herself. She knew that grandma didn't like to be interrupted.

She tossed a side look at her and picked up a piece of her puzzle and placed it along another piece. "I know how the media can twist pictures around. I also know that what you're saying is the truth."

Sam felt immediate relief at those words, easing the tightness in her stomach. When her grandma didn't continue Sam took her opportunity. "I just don't know what to do about all of this. No one believes me except you, Danny and Tucker. And the Guys in White have convinced mom and dad that I'm being overshadowed or overpowered or something by Phantom. Which is _not_ happening."

"So Danny believes you, but what does he think about all of this?"

Sam shrugged and began looking through the puzzle pieces on her side for matching ones. "He just wants to know who took the picture so he can get to the bottom of this. He just wants it to go away as much as I do."

"And Tucker?"

"He's trying to figure out who took the picture and other stuff on it. He actually stood up for me today when some jock was getting in our faces about the whole ordeal."

"Good. A lot of things happened at school today, then." She connected another puzzle piece to the bigger picture.

Sam sat there confused for a few seconds, "What do you…" and then it hit her. "Oh. Did you answer the call or did mom and dad tell you?"

"I answered the call." Ida shook her head, "Detention for fighting, Samantha. You're lucky you weren't administered a suspension."

Sam visibly winced as her grandma used her full first name. "I know it just… all day I've been getting jabbed at and called horrible names and I kept my temper in check with them. And then lunch came and Danny was in the bathroom and Paulina got in my face and she grabbed my arm and said something incredibly nasty about Tucker and I kind of just lost it. Tucker and Dash were keeping both of us at bay, but Danny was the one to get me to stop. Of course that was only because he threw me over his shoulder." She grumbled, sometimes she hated when he did that. "And then Tetslaff was there handing me and Paulina detention slips for 7 days."

Her grandma didn't speak for quite some time and Sam focused on the puzzle in front of her. Five minutes past as she looked over the puzzle pieces and thought over her fight with Paulina.

"I'm not sorry that I did it. But I _am sorry_ that I let my temper get away from me." She looked up from the growing picture of the Roman Colosseum to see that Ida was sitting there quietly watching her.

"Good. But you're very lucky that they aren't pressing charges."

"Yeah, cause she grabbed me first. Wait, good?"

Ida nodded. "Yes, What she did was horrible and she probably deserved it, but you know better now to make sure that it doesn't happen again. At any time."

Sam nodded her head quickly. "It won't happen again. I'll make sure of it."

Knowing that she would keep her promise, Ida nodded and said, "Good. Now tell me how are you and Danny coping so far?"

Sam sighed and leaned back in the chair, crossing her arms over her chest, "It's harder to go back to 'being friends' now that we've laid everything out in the open and this whole rumor thing is tough for us too. But I think once that all blows over and Charlie and his parents leave, it'll be a lot easier since that constant pressure won't be there." And then they could go back to focusing on the GIW and Danny's Ghost King problem.

"Very true. Without their constant presence it would be easier to go back to living normally again. And how's Tucker doing with all of this?"

"Good I think. Better than me and Danny at least. He's kind of keeping us sane right now; reminding us when we're being too couply or something too. And with the whole Paulina thing he's kind of freaked out of the rumor that made me hit her, but he's taking it a lot better than I was expecting."

"When are the boys coming over next?" Grandma asked and placed three more puzzle pieces down.

"Tomorrow." She chuckled at the reason why, "They want to meet Charlie."

"Oh dear." Ida looked up and smiled at her. "Can I video tape that?"

Sam laughed and shook her head, "I wish."

"Well, make sure they don't hurt him too badly. And after the introduction I want all of you to meet with me here. I've got something I want to tell you three together."

"What is it?"

"Tomorrow, bubela." Ida smirked.

Sam smiled again then frowned as another thought came to her mind. "What are we going to tell the Wellingswood's?"

"The truth of course." Her grandma looked at her oddly. "Though if we really wanna screw with 'em we could confirm the rumor."

Sam laughed, "Just imagine their faces!"

"It will all turn out alright in the end, Sam. Just watch."

It was a few hours later that Charlie had finally made his way back from Chicago that the entire family and his parents sat him down at the dining room table and told him what was going on. Sam was fairly surprised to see that her parents had already explained to the Wellingswood's about the ghosts of Amity Park. She was even more surprised to see her parents sticking with her own story of her getting saved. But she knew not to let this slip her up because she remembered from earlier that morning with the GIW that they were to play off this rumor and they would deal with her and Danny. Sam figured that once she was out of the room, her parents would tell Charlie the plan so he wouldn't freak out.

She could see the wariness in the way Tony and his wife Laura were looking at her and knew that her parents had to have already informed them of the plan the GIW concocted. She didn't particularly care but she also knew that if this thing played out for the worse, she wouldn't be here to argue her parents about it anyway.

Later that night as she did her homework, Danny opened his side of the link and she knew that he wanted to talk with her. She was incredibly happy that during these tough times that so far they hadn't had any reason to cut the link – not that she wanted to anyway. She made sure to keep her focus on her paper she was reading over because Charlie had come in about half an hour ago and asked to join her in her 'homework journey' – his words not hers.

' _So you figured out some things on the picture, I hope?'_

' _Tucker did. I wasn't much help.'_

' _I figured. Now what did he find?'_

' _He says that the picture was definitely messed with and that he's 100% sure that he was in that picture and it was probably taken when we either left the park or landed in the park.'_

' _But then we should have seen someone if it was taken at either of those times.'_

' _Right. Tucker said that they would have had to be no more than 10 yards away given the dimensions and zoom or something of the photo he determined. I don't know all the tech mumbo jumbo, but he said that we would have had to have seen them because of the angle the picture was taken and how the pixels relate to each other or something in the photograph.'_

' _So then why didn't we?'_

' _I don't know and he doesn't either. He traced the photo back to the computer at the Amity Park Angle and then through that he was able to hack their emails and found some trace or something to where the picture originated from; which was in a computer from the only Internet Café in town. He even tried tracing the email that was used to send the photo but that was the only email made from the account. And apparently the account itself was made just before they sent the picture to the Angle.'_

' _So we need to go and check out the Café and see if anyone can identify who was sitting at the computer Tucker traced it to.'_

' _Pretty much, yeah. We were thinking of doing it tomorrow.'_

' _Okay, but before we do that, grandma said she had something important she wanted to tell the three of us, so we have to at least stop by here first before going over there.'_

' _Yeah, that sounds good. I wonder what she wants to tell us.'_

' _I don't know. I asked and she wouldn't tell me.'_

' _I guess we'll find out tomorrow. You coming on Patrol?'_ She could hear the hopeful tone in his voice.

She sighed, _'As much as I want to, I think it'll be best if I just stay here. Plus Charlie's in my room working on homework and it'd be kind of proving the rumors true if you just showed up in my room.'_

' _Damn. We're still meeting that guy tomorrow right?'_

She rolled her eyes, _'Yes.'_

' _Good. See ya tomorrow, Sam.'_

' _Bye Danny. Kick those ghosts butts for me.'_

She heard him mentally chuckle before he cut their conversation

* * *

 **October 2nd, 2014**

 **Thursday**

 **Casper High School**

 **12:43 p.m.**

The following school day went smoother than the previous day though only marginally. Words were still said, and Paulina and Sam kept throwing each other scathing looks that made everyone back up at least ten paces. But at least they both were able to keep from verbally assaulting the other. Between these verbal attacks Danny had distractions of having to go out a fight ghosts, though now he had to watch out as the paparazzi were everywhere again. He kept telling them the same thing _'that he didn't know who Sam Manson was'_ , but they didn't want to seem to believe him. The only fight between humans that really happened that whole day started at the end of gym class, when everyone was sent to the lockers to change.

"So this Phantom thing is kind of working out in my favor." Danny heard Dash say from the other side of the row of lockers. "I love to dress up like him and Paulina just wants to fuck him so this week has been pretty good to me so far."

"Ew." Danny said looking over to Tucker who was in the middle of changing – Danny having already done so in the bathroom stall he used. "I have never not wanted to hear something so badly before." He shuddered.

"Your suit is kind of a little tight." Tucker said and Danny gave him his 'are you kidding me' stare. "What! It's true. You should see how much Sam checks out your ass, and not just in your other form."

Danny rolled his eyes and made a note in his head to ask Sam about that later; he wondered if he could get her to blush. He was always looking for different ways to get her to blush since it typically never happened.

"But isn't she into chicks?" Danny heard Tyler, the captain of the basketball team, ask. Danny's mind was instantly filled with flashbacks to when Seraphina was changing their moods and he threatened Tyler to never speak about Sam again. Now he _knew_ he had to definitely keep listening in on this conversation.

"Have you seen girl on girl? In real life it's like winning the game, getting straight A's and having sex all at once."

"You wonder if she's secretly done it with Manson?" Danny was instantly on his feet when he heard those words leave Tyler's mouth, but Tucker's hand on his shoulder stopped him from going anywhere.

"No reason to start anything. At least yet." Tucker told him quietly.

"What is it with you and Manson? Got a crush on her or something?"

"Have you seen her!" Tyler exclaimed, "Yeah she's goth, but besides that crap have you seen her body?" Danny growled lowly and Tucker finished tying his tennis shoes and stood next to Danny a frown marring his features. "Plus considering what she did with Fenton and Foley and that new guy that Paulina said is supposed to be her _'eventual husband'_ or whatever and finally with Phantom, I think it's pretty safe to assume that I have a shot."

' _Danny what's wrong?'_ Sam's voice came through loud and clear in his head. This was not the time for her to be in his head.

' _Nothing me and Tucker can't handle.'_

"Well, let's ask him then. Hey Fentonail!" Dash called. Danny turned towards the end of the row of lockers just as Dash and Tyler and a few other basketball and football buddies came to stand in front of them. Tyler looked a little nervous but otherwise stood his ground.

' _Danny. Why are you suddenly so angry?'_

' _Because I'm pretty sure I'm about to beat Tyler to a bloody pulp.'_

' _What! Danny no!'_

"What Dash?" Danny asked and stood in an easy stance that threw off the whole school thinking him to be lazy, but really his muscles were tensed and ready to spring forward at any notice. Tucker stepped over the bench dividing the lockers to stand evenly with Danny; his hands were curled into fists by his sides.

"Now that you're ex-girlfriend is known as the school slut, do you think my friend here has a chance with her darky weirdness?"

"I'm actually pretty sure that title still belongs to Paulina, Dash." Tucker rolled his eyes.

"How many people has it been out behind the bleachers today?" Danny smirked moving his eyes between both boys who he clearly had the substantial height on and was using it to his advantage. He noticed that Tyler looked like he wanted to run out of the locker room more and more as Danny looked at him. "I'm guessing you weren't one of them."

"Ha! Like that little stuff actually means anything. I'm the one who takes her to bed. Not that I need to explain anything to _you_." Dash rolled his eyes and looked at his friend. "I think you're out of luck, Ty. I bet she's got like herpes or something anyway."

Danny wasn't sure if he was too slow or if he actually wanted it to happen, but he saw Tucker step forward, pull back his arm and hit Dash square in the jaw.

"Shit! That hurts a lot more than… ah!" He yelled in surprise as Dash launched at him but Danny intercepted by grabbing Dash's fist in his hand. He watched the surprise appear on his face before twisting it hard making Dash turn his body to keep his arm from breaking and going to his knees.

"I'm out!" Tyler yelled and ran past Danny who could care less. Dash was the one to bring up the bad things about Sam. He couldn't exactly help Tyler's dirty thoughts about Sam – hell he got them too.

' _Don't do it! I'm almost changed. I will barge in there if you throw a punch.'_

But it was too late.

Another football player went after him and he let go of Dash's arm to block an attempt from the jock to hit his face. Tucker was having his own problem of fighting Dash – who had gotten back up. Danny ducked and dodged his way through the hands, then when he had an opening he knocked the guy's feet out from under him, sending him crashing into the lockers. Meanwhile Sam's anger at him only fueled his own anger towards Dash and what he said. Another jock came at him and got in a lucky hit to his stomach.

"Switch." Danny said fiercely. Having been best friends for so long and fighting ghosts for three years Tucker immediately knew that Danny meant switch fighting opponents. Danny hopped over the bench and sent a fist to Dash's open gut making him bend over, but Danny was hit hard in the ribs and pushed into the lockers, knocking his shoulder hard.

He focused on bringing up his knee but Dash was already standing up and his knee missed his nose by a few inches. Dash brought up his other arm and Danny went in for a sweep of his legs, and got a hit to Danny in the cheek and jaw. But Danny's sweep worked well and Dash was on the ground again. But Dash used his own legs to trip Danny who landed face first in the lockers to quickly for him to phase his nose through. He felt it quickly and could tell it wasn't broken but he wasn't going to look pretty for a few days.

He turned and leaned down, punching Dash and getting him in the eye before reaching forward to grab a hold of the front of his shirt and lifted him up until he was pressed back into the lockers. "You are never going to speak about Sam like that again. No one, and that includes me is allowed to talk about Sam that way. To anyone." He could see the surprise a fear in Dash's eyes and wondered if his eyes were glowing for a split second. "You're never going to talk about Sam, think about Sam or look at Sam. You got it?" He could practically hear his voice rumble in his own ears.

Dash nodded his head frantically. "Yeah, I go-got it." Danny let him go but kept his body ready, just in case.

"I heard that there was a fight going on in here." Mr. Green said loudly as he came up behind Danny. He instantly let go of Dash's shirt and he moved away from him quickly.

' _Crap.'_

' _You know if you hadn't been so busy fighting, you would have heard me warn you.'_

' _Tucker and I were defending your honor.'_

"Everyone here will be serving a five day detention. And a session with the guidance counselor on Monday." Mr. Green pulled out a book and began writing detention slips.

' _And getting a detention is the way to go about doing that?'_

' _Didn't we have this same conversation yesterday? But swapped?'_ he knew he was being sarcastic but he knew that he was starting to rack up his detentions. And it was only October. He looked to his right to see Tucker standing next to Kwan, both sporting injuries and Danny was filled with a sudden pride that him and Tucker finally took their bullies on. Even if for a moment.

' _Yes, go Tucker. But seriously…we_ just _talked about this!'_

' _I know, Sam!'_ he rubbed his temples tiredly and accepted the slip from Mr. Green. Once Tucker was handed his as well both of them moved past the male gym teacher for the door.

"Is Sam pissed?"

"Oh, she's beyond pissed." Sam answered Tucker's question before Danny as they entered the hallway. She was leaned against the far wall, arms crossed over her chest and sporting a deadly look.

"We're not just going to stand by a let someone say those things about you." Danny said, folding his own arms over his chest. "I don't care that you can handle yourself and that you don't want me or Tucker fighting someone on your behalf. We're going to do it anyway, because no one should say things about _anyone_ like that. _Especially_ our best friend. And no I'm not saying this just because we're dating." Sometimes having the mind linked helped with situations like this so he could explain things much better and quicker than before because he followed her thought process.

Sam sighed, "I know, but guys this is my fight."

"And now you sound like Danny." Tucker supplied.

"Tucker's right, no matter what we're not just going to sit by. Even if everyone expects me to, you've always been my best friend and if people think that just because we've 'broken up'" he made sure to emphasize that so Sam and Tucker knew he was saying it like this just in case other people over heard them. They didn't want anyone to find out that they were still together in case it got back to her parents. "Doesn't mean you're not still my best friend. I'm not sorry for what went on in there and I'm pretty sure Tucker isn't either."

He turned to look at his other best friend. "Danny's right. I don't regret punching Dash at all. He deserves it anyway. Still kind of want to hit Tyler but he ran away when Danny stopped Dash from punching me."

"Tyler? The basketball captain? The one that Danny threatened a few weeks ago?"

"The very one." Danny nodded. "Pretty sure he's too terrified of me to come up to you right now, but he's definitely got a thing for you, Sam."

Sam curled her nose up, "Ugh! That's so gross."

The door to the locker room opened behind them and Danny and Tucker turned around to see Dash, Kwan and his three football friends bustle out. None of them looked at the trio as they made their way down the short hallway and turned right, disappearing down the next hallway.

"Wow. They looked pretty worse for wear." Sam said. "And you guys don't look so hot either." She sighed. "We'll talk about this later, let's get you guys cleaned up a little before the bell rings."

She led them into the deemed 'Haunted Bathroom' by the school – which made the trio laugh when it was brought up because it made them sound like they were from Harry Potter. She pulled a small first aid kit from her backpack and cleaned up their cuts, giving them bandages for a few that Tucker needed. She checked over Tucker's knuckles and deemed that they would bruise and besides being rubbed a bit raw they would be fine. She handed him his extra pair of glasses that she kept in the first aid kit because one of the lenses on his glasses had cracked in multiple places.

Through the whole ordeal Danny and Sam kept the walls up on their link. Danny was starting to get really nervous about everything going on and the effects between him and Sam. They seemed to be fighting now more than ever. And things were pretty crazy, but if they couldn't work things out now, how could they when so many other things could happen later down the road. He wanted to talk to her, but he knew that it was best that they both calm down and wait for Tucker to calm down too, since this whole thing included him as well.

He crossed his fingers – not figuratively – knowing that they were strong enough to get through this, but a little bit of extra hope couldn't hurt.

Throughout the rest of the day it was quiet between all three of them until it was time for detention.

"I don't want anything Dash does to get you riled up, so if he says something you listen to me when I tell you to sit down and I'll listen to you if you tell me to back off from Paulina." Sam said just outside the door, looking between both of them.

"Okay." Danny and Tucker agreed instantly and they walked into detention. They were the first ones there and chose seats in the back. When Paulina, Dash, Kwan and the other football players joined them and the other few kids that had detention, they sat on the clear opposite side of the room from the trio.

Detention passed by slowly, but finally they were all released and making their ways to their cars, still avoiding one another. Tucker checked his phone instantly and found two missed calls from his mother and a voicemail telling him that they were going to talk when he got home right after school about his detention.

Sam and Danny waited silently as he called his mother and told her that he would be home as soon as he was done speaking with Ida. He explained that she really wanted to talk to all three of them but he wasn't sure about what and she had been adamant on today – he even volunteered to call her again and have her speak with Ida. She declined and said she believed him, but after that there would be no more stops. He promised and hung up his phone a bit nervous. If he was grounded then he might not to get to go with Sam and Danny to visit Jazz that weekend.

Danny wasn't sure how he felt about the fact that his parents hadn't called him yet. He wasn't sure if they had even been home to accept the call or not. But if they had gotten the call about his detention, and they hadn't called him, they were either too used to the detentions or would want to speak with him once he got home. All he knew was that he really didn't want to deal with them trying to act like parents when he did something wrong and not being around until that point.

"I'm sorry that we upset you, Sam." Tucker said a few seconds after he hung up the phone.

"I'm sorry too, for yesterday." She responded. "And for yelling at you guys. But I meant every word I said."

"We can get kind of overprotective of you." Danny spoke up from the backseat.

"You mean, _you_ can get overprotective of her. I just get regular protective." Tucker said which received a snort from Sam.

"You keep telling yourself that. But that's true; I get overprotective with you guys too."

"We're pretty messed up." Danny agreed.

"Would we be us if we weren't?" Tucker asked, turning in his seat to look at him.

Danny chuckled and shook his head. "No, but we do make up for it with our interesting after school activities."

Sam chuckled, "We could even have our own T.V. Show. We've got enough drama for it."

"Ooh, ooh!" Tucker got excited, "We could have a theme song and everything!"

"Seeing how everything's going, we'll probably see one being made soon. You know how everyone likes being up in my business."

"Which is why going away to visit Jazz this weekend will be a nice change of pace." Sam concluded. _'Are we okay?'_ Sam asked immediately afterwards.

' _I was thinking the same thing, earlier.'_ He wasn't sure to be relieved or more nervous.

' _Everything has just been so crazy this week!'_

' _I know, but I don't want us to fight about these things.'_

' _Me either.'_ She sighed. _'I think we're okay, we just have a lot going on.'_

Danny was immediately struck with an idea. _'Since no matter what we're going away this weekend, we're going to act as couply as possible. Or at least possible for us.'_

' _If we do that then we're going to get out of habit when we come back.'_ He could tell she wanted to be on board, but this past week was holding her back.

' _No, think of it as a last hurrah type of thing. Because when we come back we can't really do any big dates or anything until you turn 18 or something happens with your suitor guy. We'll get to be more of ourselves this weekend and we won't let Jazz or Tucker's words get in the way.'_

' _That does sound nice.'_ She mused as she pulled into her garage. _'Okay, I like it. One last big hurrah 'date' weekend before we come back to secret dating.'_

' _Yes!'_ Danny got out of the car along with Tucker and Sam, and then proceeded to kiss her.

"Ugh! I knew you were having some sort of lovey conversation in your heads. I'm going inside."

Danny barely heard Tucker say, but he didn't care as Sam deepened their kiss, leaning against her car. His hand came up to cup her jaw and cheek and one of Sam's hands twisted in the material of his shirt. He couldn't help but inhaling her sent smelling like lavender and she tasted like her lunch of tofu and grapes. It was just so Sam that he felt like he couldn't get enough.

"I love you." He whispered as they pulled away to breathe, leaning their foreheads against each other's.

"Love you, too." She smiled at him, and Danny could see that twinkle in her eye that she'd been missing since Monday. "Wanna meet Charlie now?"

He could only laugh in response as Sam led him from the garage and up the stairs. She called for Tucker who met them at the stairs before leading them both towards the guest hallway in their home.

"Charlie?" Sam asked, knocking on one of the closed doors that had low rock music coming from it. The music stopped instantly and the next second Danny and Tucker were presented with Charlie standing before them.

"Hey Sam!" He smiled right at her and Danny again felt jealousy spike in his chest, but Sam sent him calming reassuring waves and something he was sure was what she had been feeling when they kissed downstairs in the garage.

"Hi, Charlie." She greeted. "I actually wanted you to meet my two best friends and now ex-boyfriend, Tucker and Danny."

With that Charlie turned his eyes towards him and Tucker, who both stood over him. Danny made sure to put on his best smile and reached out a hand to shake Charlie's hand.

"Danny Fenton. Sam's _ex_."

' _You're mean.'_

Charlie gripped Danny's hand in a firm handshake, his smile gone. Danny could see that in his blue/green eyes that he was trying to size him up but Danny had already gotten his first impression and he knew he could take him even before the accident. He wasn't lanky, and was muscular enough from the sports he played, but Danny could easily tell this guy wasn't a fighter. Not that he had been either when he was younger, but fighting ghosts every moment of your life typically turned you into someone who would rather throw a few punches than a few words.

"Nice to meet you. I've heard a lot about you."

Danny made sure to grip his hand hard and he could feel Charlie's hand strain of trying to tighten his hold to match Danny's. But his was tighter. "Same to you."

And before Danny could really put pressure on this guy's hand, Sam interrupted. "And this is my other best friend, Tucker."

' _Sam, I wasn't gonna break his hand or anything.'_

' _Oh I know, but I figured Tucker deserved to make him wince in pain too.'_

"Good to meet you." Charlie said a bit shakily as Danny let go of his hand. He shook it out barely before shaking Tucker's hand.

"Likewise." With the indication of a wince from Charlie, Danny and Sam shared a look knowing Tucker was using the force that not many people knew he possessed now. He was quite strong now after working out with Danny and Sam and fighting ghosts so often. When he released his hold on Charlie's hand, Charlie held it in his other hand protectively.

"So, uh… no hard feelings?" Charlie asked Danny hesitantly.

Danny smirked, "Oh, none at all. Sam deserves someone who'll make sure she's a proper lady." Sam laughed in his head and he heard Tucker stifle a snort – hiding it as a cough. "I'm sure her happiness will come along later."

Charlie looked at him clearly shocked. "Oh! Well, okay then. I hope that we could get to know each other better. You too Tucker. Since you are both so close to Sam."

"It'll be like a dream." Danny responded.

"Alright, we better be going. Grandma wanted to say a few words to them. See ya." Sam announced their departure.

"It was good to meet you, both." Danny and Tucker gave a single nod towards him before walking away from his door and towards Ida's room. "See you for dinner, Sam." And he gently closed his door.

When they were far enough away and figured Charlie put his music back on, they all busted out laughing.

"That was hilarious." Sam wheezed. "I haven't laughed like this in so long."

"Gods dude, about Sam being a proper lady… ha… that just…" Tucker couldn't finish his sentence as he was overwhelmed with laughter again.

"I don't know, figured it was a good thing to say at the time."

"I'm pretty sure he believed you." Sam chuckled, gaining control of herself again.

"If he knew you at all he would have laughed too." Danny smiled widely.

"So what did you two think?" Sam asked and leaned against the wall.

"Nope." Tucker shook his head, recovering from his laughter. "No way. He dresses like I do when I have to go to my dad's firm parties. And he was way too weak, did you see how me and Danny crushed his hand. He couldn't keep up with you."

"No one can keep up with, Sam." Danny reminded Tucker. "But I agree, wholeheartedly. And he wants to get to know me and Tucker better." He snorted. "We could show him a good time." He looked over at Tucker and grinned his trouble maker grin, where his mouth pulled up too high on one side and only one dimple appeared on his cheek.

"Oh yeah." Tucker grinned back and nodded in agreement, "We could definitely show him a thing or two."

Sam shook he head and chuckled lightly – she found that once she truly accepted that goth was not falling under specific stereotypes such as 'goths don't laugh', she was able to laugh more often and not feel strange about it. "Gods you two, I don't even wanna know. Anyway, you ready to see grandma?"

"Yeah." They both answered and they moved back down the hallway towards Sam's room and knocked on Ida's door.

"Come in." She called out and they walked on in, making sure to re-shut the door behind them. "Hello, my dears. How was school today?"

Danny and Tucker instantly looked down at their feet. But Sam urged them forward towards Ida where she sat in her reading chair by the window, her table with the puzzle sitting behind her chair.

"We uh," Danny started, "Me and Tucker got detention for fighting Dash and a few of his friends."

Ida put down her book and gave them the same no nonsense look she gave Sam yesterday. "You boys need get your tempers under control. I'm sure whatever Dash said about Sam was truly terrible, but that is no means to go and get yourselves in trouble for it. Though it is very sweet in an odd way."

Both boys were relieved to hear her say this as disappointing her was just as bad to them as it was to Sam. They never liked it when she was angry with them.

"What did you want to talk with us about, grandma?" Sam asked and took a seat. The boys followed by grabbing the two chairs that sat at the puzzle table and brought them over next to Sam's chair.

"I think I've found a way to solve your problems. And it will have to start with Danny having an interview with a reporter and telling his story."

"Wait, what?" All three of them asked giving her confused looks.

Ida smiled, like she almost knew something that they didn't. "Get the dirt of your ears, dears. Danny will have to start with an interview telling them that he never met Sam before and then Sam will have to make her statement from what she told those nasty GIW men."

Danny could feel his jaw drop and looked at Tucker and Sam who shared the same disbelieving looks. "What?"

"Oh honey. Really? You didn't think that I didn't know that you were Phantom? I've practically known since you first appeared as your other self, back when you were fourteen."

 **October 2nd, 2014**

 **Thursday**

 **Manson Mansion: Ida's Room**

 **4:00 p.m.**

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Hey guys! So I didn't get this up when I wanted too, but I'm still trying to get over this sickness and now I have a stupid cough that I'm really hoping is not bronchitis or something. Anyway I will have ch. 25 up by Wednesday (Thursday at the most absolute latest) and then we should be back on schedule. **By the way, didn't exactly proof-read this chapter so if you see anything let me know! And I'll do my best to make time and fix it!**

About the whole computer/ picture thing. I literally have no idea if that stuff is really possible. I only get my information from NCIS from McGee. (yes, I do love NCIS)

Who liked my batgirl reference?! I'm such a slut for anything Nightwing related! I'm not exactly a shipper of DickxBabs I'm more of a DickxKori shipper myself. But I do love seeing Dick and Babs together (mainly if Starfire isn't in the stories I read at all or she left to go back to Tamaran and left Dick with little Mar'i. Then I _really_ love DickxBabs stories.)

Thank you So much to my reviewers, when I read them all they just made me feel so much better and made my day! **The Talent, Blue11msu, Savirox, SamXDanny, Phantom Fire1, ShinyMudkipGal, ShadowDragon357, CaptainDorito and Rock Rooster.**

Answers to reviews: **The Talent, ShadowDragon357, CaptainDorito**

 **The Talent:** Yeah, about the whole Dani thing I actually put her name up on this story sooner than what I should have. I thought that I would have been to her chapter by now, but sadly I'm not. I think that she'll be here after ch. 25 in the next 3-5 chapters. Not sure yet (cuz I haven't had time to sit and write them out). So we'll see. But I promise that she'll be here! Maybe with a name change ;)

 **ShadowDragon357:** You're right Danny and Tucker are totally her rock. How was that for Danny being snappy? Lol. Sorry about not responding to your PM's I keep meaning to go back and list out all my kinky goodness, but then I keep getting distracted with school work and sleeping off my sickness.

 **CaptainDorito:** Thank you for pointing out my mistakes! I'll make sure to go back and fix those later this week some time. And Yes, the residual ectoplasmic waves did come from Danny being present in Sam's mind and also because their link formed because of ectoplasmic type waves, so there was a huge presence there that really made the GIW suspicious. Yes! I know we've always talked about this, but I always feel like Tucker isn't appreciated enough in this phandom. And yeah, he can be a bit whiny and power hungry but you know what he's pretty loyal especially since he now knows what those big faults of his are and can work around them. So I always make sure to add those things with Tucker so people understand that he isn't a stupid third wheel.


	25. Grandma Knows

Hey guys! So know that it actually took me to Thursday to get this chapter done I'm going to warn you that the next chapter might be up on Monday instead of Sunday. Mainly because I'm going home this weekend and I'm going to try and fit in typing out the next chapter. Hopefully I'll get it up but I also have a big project in German due Sunday, so we'll see.

Thank you guys so much for your reviews! I loved them all so much! Thank you to: **Blue11msu, Rocky Rooster, ShadowDragon357, SamXDanny, Savirox, Guest, CaptainDorito and Ariastella!**

 ***Answers to Reviews: Blue11msu, ShadowDragon357**

Thanks again you guys for your continued support! Also if you see any mistakes in this chapter please let me know, I've only glanced over it. Thanks so much and I can't wait to see what you think about this chapter. I've added a little bit at the bottom that's new information that you find out through Tucker's pov so that's why it's not as worked out as it could be. Hope to hear what you have to say on that. Trust me you'll know it when you get to it.

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom because if I did, well it definitely wouldn't be a younger kids show lol. Or the lyrics to Golden Days by Panic! At the Disco.**

* * *

 **Oh don't you wonder when the light begins to fade?**

 **And the clock just makes the colors turn to grey**

 **Forever younger**

 **Growing older just the same**

 **All the memories that we make will never change**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Grandma Knows**

 **Word count: 7,194**

 **3/10/16**

* * *

 **October 2nd, 2014**

 **Thursday**

 **Manson Mansion: Ida's Room**

 **4:00 p.m.**

The trio sat in their seats unsure of how to respond.

Danny however immediately clammed up and sat just a little bit taller. He wasn't sure what to say, but he knew that if she'd known that long then Ida must have accepted him because she never mentioned anything to anyone. Especially one of them.

"Why didn't you tell us?" He asked as he thought over the fact that she's known for three years and hasn't said one word to him, Sam or Tucker.

"I was waiting for _you_ to tell _me_. But of course these circumstances are fairly extreme, which is why I'm bringing this up now."

"But how did you know?" Sam questions, her brows were furrowed unsure how to take the fact that she's been trying to sneak around her family and yet her grandma knew pretty much everything she did.

Ida chuckled, "When you three were younger you weren't as careful as you are now and Danny didn't use to be so good at hiding when he transformed." Danny turned a bit bashful at this statement. "Also your Phantom form changed just as you did, Danny. Plus, being around you all the time, I was definitely able to tell that you are Phantom."

Danny and Sam shared the same thought and knew that it was running through Tucker's head as well, about how many others knew because they lacked in making sure they were careful when they were younger.

Danny knew Ida must have seen the concerned looks on their faces and she started to reassure them. "If people didn't know when you were younger, than they are more likely than not to be unknowledgeable now. And you three are much more careful now then you were back when you were just starting out."

They feel relieved by her statement, knowing that she was probably right. If someone had figured out when they were younger, then they would have been confronted or Danny would have been outed, but that hadn't happened – unless you counted the time with Freakshow. They figured she was right since it'd been three years and no one had changed their views or opinions of either Phantom or Fenton. Well, Phantom became a bit more popular and Fenton became more 'troubled', but besides those the public was pretty adamant on seeing Phantom as the town savior and Fenton as some troubled kid in high school; though the public didn't even know Fenton. But what they really couldn't believe was the fact that Ida had known the whole time!

"Are you… are you really okay with me being half dead?" Danny asked her tentatively. Sam instantly placed a reassuring hand on his knee and Tucker's hand found its way to his shoulder giving him silent support. Though he has accepted the fact that he's technically half dead he never liked to give it actual much thought. And even though Sam, Tucker and Jazz had accepted this fact as well, he was still worried on others perceptions about this in case someone else did find out. He didn't want them running to the hills because he was in a way his own ghost possessing his own body.

"I figured that what happened to you was during the accident down in your parent's lab a few days after your fourteenth birthday." Danny realized that he'd actually be celebrating his 'Death Day' while they were visiting Jazz since it was on October 4th.

"I think that it's terrible that this happened to you. But, this is who you are now and I accept you for being half-ghost because you're still you, no matter what. I'd still accept you even if you started turning into crazy lunatic animals." This earned her a few smiles.

"Thank you." Danny said, his voice giving way to his true sincerity of what she said and how those words made him feel all the better about her knowing his secret.

"So back to my idea of the interviews. I think that having both you and Sam do the interviews might make this start to blow over. And it _really_ needs to."

"You're telling me." Sam grumbled under her breath but the others let it go since they felt the same.

"I like the idea." Danny said, "But I'm not too sure because doing it live would probably mean that the GIW would bust down the door before we got to the actual interview questions and then arrest me right then in there in front of the cameras."

"I really want to see those retched Guys in White disbanded for what they do." Ida grumbled at them, then looks up at Danny with wide, unsure eyes. "Are you okay? After what… what happened a few weeks ago?"

Danny immediately felt Sam tighten her hand on his knee. He threaded his fingers over hers, trying to be reassuring. "I'm doing better than I was. I of course still get flashbacks sometimes. But now it's mainly trickled down to dreams. But," Danny shrugged, the weight of Tucker's arm was still prevalent on his shoulders, "I've kind of gotten used to the bad stuff. My mind just seems to deal with that like everything else. Anyway, I'm still too wary around any Agents that are around, including the Agent that teaches our Ghost 101 class, but I'll be fine because of my amazing support team behind me." He glanced at Tucker and Sam. He felt a pull of a touch of anger from Sam, but he wasn't sure of the reason. "And comparatively I've dealt with worse things."

He immediately can tell that Tucker and Sam are not in agreement with that statement, but Danny lets it go.

Ida smiled at him a bit sadly, "I wish that…"

"No!" They all shout, leaning forward as they did.

"What?" She looks between them all confused.

"Remember the ghost Desiree? She's a wishing ghost and granting wishes gives her enormous power. She's not too much of a threat, but we can never seem to catch her when she's not already pretty powerful because of 'wishes'." Sam explained. "So we've cut the w-word from our vocabulary just in case. We've gotten into too much trouble with that too many times."

Ida just shakes her head but says, "Alright. One day you all are going to sit down and tell me about your adventures and fights."

"It's kind of a long, _long_ story." Tucker tells her.

"I have time." Ida says. "But, anyway, back to our problem at hand. If you're worried about the GIW, Danny, you should just find a reporter and tell them after they do their piece that you would like to do an interview with them without public knowledge. Then film it and they can show it the next day when you're long gone.

Danny instantly likes this idea much better and was a bit unsure how he hadn't thought of that. "It's definitely better than before." Sam and Tucker made a noise of confirmation, "Hopefully though they actually listen to me."

"I think they will." Ida mused.

"How about we go about doing that on Monday after we get back from Jazz's." Sam says and Danny and Tucker agree that that's probably for the best considering that the faster they get rid of the rumor the easier their lives would become.

"Speaking of which, what about the photo? How did that come about?"

"Danny was taking me and Tucker to the park so I could tell them about the whole situation with Charlie and not have Danny wreck the house or wake anyone up." Sam explained to her grandma. "Tucker actually figured out that the photo had been taken of all three of us and he had been edited out."

"Yeah, I first took the picture and figured out the pixel…"

"I really don't want to know, Tuck."

"Spoiler." He shot back and stuck his tongue out at her. Sam retaliated and Danny put a hand up in between the two.

"We were actually hoping to go and visit the Café that Tucker was able to trace the computer which sent the picture to the Angle. But we can't do that anymore because we're all pretty sure that Tucker's grounded too."

"We're you able to figure out who took the photo?" Ida question.

"No." Tucker tuned back to the conversation, "But we figured if we got a look at the security cameras and looked to see who all used that one computer than we'd be able to determine from there or just know immediately once we saw who it was. But whoever did take the photo got pretty close before zooming in the rest of the way. And the angle which the picture was taken meant he or she had to have been standing. I've been giving thoughts to drones but then we would have most definitely heard or seen one of those too."

"Which is pretty much the long version of saying that 'we're stumped'." Danny supplied.

"Well, considering we can't do anything until Monday about this problem I suggest you boys go home and confront your parents about happened at school today. Don't want to keep them waiting much longer."

"Yeah, you're right." Tucker agreed and stood up. He quickly walked over towards his and Danny's bags by the door and picked them up. Danny changed, flashing the room in white before he stood in front of them in his other form. He quickly kissed Sam good-bye and strapped his backpack to his back telling Ida that he'd see her later. Tucker said a very quick 'bye' before Danny flew them both out of the roof of the house.

Ida watched the ceiling for a few seconds where she watched the boys disappear before turning and looking at Sam who was giving her a knowing smile.

"That is so cool."

"Yep," Sam smiled, "It's _really_ cool."

Ida smirked and raised an eyebrow, "Really accents certain features, doesn't it?"

"Grandma!" But Ida only laughed in response.

* * *

 **October 2nd, 2014**

 **Thursday**

 **Foley Residence**

 **4:15 p.m.**

When Tucker walked through the front door he found both of his parents sitting on the couch in the living room, waiting for him. "I can explain, I promise." He immediately reassures and moves to sit on the couch opposite them.

"Go on then." His father instructs suddenly making Tucker nervous, but he plunges ahead with the story anyway. When he finishes giving them all the details he can think of without getting in more trouble than he already was in, they both remained stoically quiet on the couch.

"We're not happy that you got into a fight." His mother started, "But we do understand about sticking up for Sam." Tucker was so happy that his parents believed that Sam was innocent in everything, unlike everyone else. It made this conversation feel slightly better than when he started it. "But we don't want this to happen again, do you understand?"

"Yes." He immediately responded.

"Good." His father said, "But if you need to talk to someone about what's going on, you just have to let us know okay, son?"

"No, that's okay. I'm okay, really." He ran a hand over his short hair, "It was just all the stuff people have said about Sam just kind of started piling up, and she's my best friend you know, and then Dash and Tyler were just the icing on top of the cake." He shook his head in disbelief, small flashbacks of the fight appeared in his memory.

"We're proud that you stood up for her." Maurice said, "But you're still grounded until next weekend for fighting. But you can still go visit Jazz because we already bought the tickets.

What Tucker didn't know was that the real reason Maurice and Angela were letting him go was because they knew that Danny and Sam really need him at this point in time. Otherwise they wouldn't have let him go.

"What's the punishment?" Tucker asked and started pulling out some of his gadgets.

"No tech unless it's for school work, no video games, you're phone is to stay in the Tech basket until you leave for school and is only to be used in case of emergency, home right after school and your mother is cutting cookies for the week."

"No cookies!"

"Next time you'll think better about throwing a punch at somebody." His mom said before grabbing the Tech basket from underneath the coffee table. "Alright, put 'em in."

* * *

 **October 2nd, 2014**

 **Thursday**

 **Fenton Works**

 **4:16 p.m.**

When Danny walked through his front door he was greeted with the sight of Jack sitting alone on the couch tinkering with the Fenton Foamer.

"Danny," Jack looked up from the Foamer and patted the seat next to him on the couch, "Take a seat, son."

Danny sighed, shut the door behind him and made his way over to the couch, sitting further away from Jack then a normal teenage son would sit next to his father. "Where's Ma…Mom? Where's mom?" He made sure to catch himself before he said his mother's first name. Sure it wasn't odd for anyone to call their parents by their first names, but it typically wasn't done to the other parent.

"She left early for her conference in Nevada. For woman scientists only." He grumbled the last part under his breath as he pulled apart a metal plate on the Fenton Foamer. "Apparently bad weather's supposed to hit tomorrow so she was able to find a flight out today last minute."

Danny was immediately filled with relief because out of his parents, he was less nervous around Jack. Super Smart – Yes. Good with weapons – No.

"So what happened at school today?"

Danny sighed heavily and ran a hand through his thick black hair. He knew that if he tried to play it off then jack would know he was lying and would try to make his punishment worse, so he decided it was best to just come out and say it. "Me and Tucker got detention for fighting with Dash, Kwan and a few of their friends because we were defending Sam."

Jack sighed himself and nodded – which Danny took to mean that he had received the call in regards to Danny's detention and this was affirmation.

"Now, I've always been more of a peace maker – at least when it comes to people – and your mother is the fighter, but I'm very proud that you stood up to them."

Danny could see it in Jack's eyes as he told him this, but Danny didn't feel a swell of happiness like he would have when he was younger.

"Everyone at that school needs to leave Sam alone. This isn't her fault. She didn't ask to be overshadowed by that horrid Phantom."

He wasn't sure to be happy or annoyed with his parents opinion of what was going on with the whole 'Phantom' thing. Tuesday, Danny informed them what was going on between him and Sam. Both of them were pretty pissed but they understood when Danny told them that they would be okay because they were keeping things secret until Sam turned 18.

And then this rumor came along and of course Jack and Maddie just couldn't see Sam doing this for real and came to the same conclusion as the GIW did. They even asked the GIW to help with the extraction since they were really close to and cared about Sam, but they told them no. Which made them even more upset. They told Danny this, but Danny was adamant in telling them Sam's story and not the 'press' one. But they would have none of that.

"Now, though I am proud of you boys, you're grounded until the day after your detention on Thursday."

"What about seeing Jazz?" Now that he was going he didn't want to _not_ see her.

"You can still see her, but you have to check in with me every few hours or so. Otherwise, I'm calling Jazz."

Danny nodded, "Sounds like a plan. I'm, ah, going to head upstairs and get started on my homework."

"Alright, I'll be down here. I'm trying to figure out how to get the Foamer to stop clogging up after so long."

"Good luck." Danny got up from the couch and made his way up the stairs, only making it half way before Jack called out to him.

"And Danny-boy?"

"Yeah?" He stopped and looked down at his father, who's serious face made Danny curious about what he was about to tell him.

"Be careful around Sam until this whole thing is resolved. We don't know what Phantom would do. To her, or anyone else she's around. _Especially_ a boyfriend."

"I will, dad." Danny told him before making the trip up the stairs and to his room.

When he was securely in his room with his door shut, Danny pulled out his phone and sent a quick message to Tucker asking him if they were still on for tonight. He put down his bag by his desk and sat in his chair before pulling out his biology homework. He figured he might as well get as much done as possible before he was interrupted by another ghost.

His phone buzzed and was surprised to see not a text from Tucker but from Tucker's mom telling him that Tucker was grounded and would not be able to respond to him. He barely read the message when his phone began ringing; TUCKER'S MOM read the caller ID and he wondered if he was going to get a second grounding before answering.

"Hi, Mrs. Foley."

"Danny, I'm sure I already know the answer to this question, but did your parents ground you for getting those detentions today?" He could hear the disappointment clear in her voice.

"Yes. But my dad didn't give specifics." He was surprised at himself to hear his whispered conviction.

"And what happens when you are usually grounded?"

He's never been truly able to lie to this woman, just as he couldn't lie to Ida and told her, "My phone is only supposed to be used in emergency's, no video games, and no computer except for school work, and then do the house chores for however long the grounding is." Not that he didn't already do them since his parents were always busy between their own lab, the GIW, and traveling around the country to give lectures on ghost and other things.

"You are old enough, Danny, to make sure you follow those rules. And I don't want to see you calling or texting Tucker unless it's an absolute emergency. And if it's that big of an emergency, you call me."

"Yes, ma'am."

Her voice instantly changed from strict parent to concerned mom. "Are you doing okay?"

"I'm okay." He sighs and he knows his statement is true enough in that moment. "I just can't wait for tomorrow night to see Jazz. I never realized how much I loved her until I didn't have her nagging around. I miss her. A lot actually."

"I'm sure you do. I remember when my own sister went away to college; it was tough since we were so close but it made us pull together even stronger. Anyway, I know that Tucker is looking forward to it too. I'm happy that he's found a friend in not only you but her as well."

"So Tucker's still allowed to come?"

"Yes. But you both are to check in with me during your train rides and while you're down there. And if I don't hear from you I'm calling Jazz."

Danny chuckled, "That's what my father told me, too. And don't worry I will."

"Everything will get better soon, sweetheart. You just have to wait for the good things sometimes."

"Thanks." Danny said, his mouth turned up in a small smiled.

"Alright, get going on your homework. Have a good night."

"Bye, Mrs. Foley."

After he hung up the smile stayed on his face. Though his mother showed her motherly side still it wasn't as often as what she had used to, and being treated this way by Mrs. Foley made him so happy that he had at least one actual mother from their group of friends that cared, and not only on the surface level.

' _So we can't sneak out tonight to check out the Internet Café. We'll have to go on Monday when the rents are less suspicious.'_ Danny told Sam having an easy time of speaking with her telepathically with her walls down.

' _Good plan. Can't believe we're all grounded at the same time.'_

' _Me either. Are you still able to go with me and Tucker to visit Jazz?'_

' _Yeah, I've been given the a-ok.'_

' _Awesome. So plan 'be all couply' is a go.'_ He laughed aloud when he heard her groan.

' _That's the name you're going with? Lame.'_

He rolled his eyes and got up from his desk, unable to concentrate with Sam in his head and decided to start packing his clothes for the weekend. _'And you can come up with a better one?'_

' _How about 'operation: disgust Tucker as much as possible'?'_

' _That is way too long.'_ He rolled his eyes and pulled a duffle bag from the shelf over the bar that his clothes hung from in his closet. ' _What about, 'Operation: Tell them to suck it'.'_

' _Yeah, that's so romantic.'_

' _Like yours was any better.'_

' _Alright, Alright how about 'operation: be ourselves for one weekend'?'_

' _I guess that's better than the last one.'_ Danny admitted, though he found it funny that they were now trying to find names to title their technical 'weekend getaway'. _'Ooh! I got it! Operation: Weekend Getaway.'_

' _Nice. Kind of a play on words if you think about it. Alright, we can go with that one. Though I kind of like 'disgust Tucker as much as possible'. That could be our back up.'_

' _I'm good with that.'_ He laughed and put a couple of shirts and shorts in the bag and began searching for things to wear during the day. _'Operation: Weekend Getaway will be underway in less than 12 hours.'_

* * *

 **October 3rd, 2014**

 **Friday**

 **Casper High**

 **8:35 a.m.**

Tucker and Sam weren't worried about the fact that Danny had been late that morning. He had texted them when it was deemed reasonable in the wee hours of the morning explaining he was caught up with a few ghosts and would not need to be picked up by Ida. She drove them to school that morning that way they could leave straight from school to the train station and not have to worry about Sam's car. Tucker even left his bag and pillow in the car that way he didn't have to lug it into school.

Danny appeared halfway through English looking completely exhausted and Tucker knew that he must have had a much longer night than what he was letting in on. He looked his best friend over – noticing that Sam was doing it as well – and could see the faint outline of a bandage on Danny's thigh. He quickly wrote a note and passed it to him asking what happened.

Danny wrote down his response before secretly handing it back and shrugged, before laying his head down on the desk.

 **Got clawed by some huge monster looking ghost. Had to stitch up my leg before coming to school. But it should be good.**

Though Tucker trusted Danny's sewing abilities, he trusted Sam's much better. Plus he knew how hard it was to sew your own flesh back together. He shuddered at the reminder of having to thread a needle through his own skin (he thought he was going to pass out back then). Both Danny and Sam had been knocked out and no one else was around to do the workmanship.

But Danny was fairly good with the needle – they all were – but Sam was the best. He was sure that Sam was already informing Danny that she wanted to look over the injury before accepting his 'I'm fine' routine.

Besides the questioning over why Danny was late the gossip train of Casper High seemed to have grown significantly quieter from Tuesday and Wednesday. Tucker was extremely happy about that because it made everything that much easier to ignore. Him and Danny also had a free day of no bullying, Dash and his friends that had gotten the detentions would only glare at them throughout the day. Him and Danny figured they were planning on ganging up on them after school was over but they would do their best to get to Ida's car before they caught up to them.

The rest of the school day was relatively boring for the trio in consideration to the past week. The snide comments were still flowing through the air, but they all let it roll off of them. Paulina kept throwing glances at Sam throughout the day, but Tucker and Danny didn't have to worry about her since she was keeping her anger for her in check.

Tucker even found the exam that they had to take in Ghost 101 to be extremely boring and far too easy. But that was because the answers were blatantly obvious.

Most of the test consisted of naming the pictures of the ghosts and what levels they fell under. Followed by bubble questions about the descriptions of each level and having to put the correct level with the correct description. Then they had to write a small essay on how to kill a ghost with blood blossoms, electrocution, ectoranium and ectoplasm. It was quite disorienting to write an essay on ways to kill his best friend, but he tried to turn it around in his mind that this was all the information he could use to keep Danny safe.

The only section he found to be semi-difficult was the section on ghost language. Mainly because little things would throw off the sentence and since he and Danny and Sam were well versed in the true language of the ghosts, it was hard to put down the right answers for some because he knew that they didn't mean the same as what Agent Z was saying they did.

Valerie was actually the first one to finish her exam followed by Sam and then himself. Sam was focused on keeping Danny awake for the last part of the exam. Tucker could tell because their eyes always had a slight far-away look in them when they were both using their mental link. When he had been younger he had been a bit jealous over their mind link but after a while and Sam and Danny telling him it wasn't like he thought, he was kind of happy that he didn't have to deal with someone else being inside his head all the time.

When the bell finally rang signaling the end of the school day made their way to detention but thankfully were not stopped by anyone. Detention to Tucker seemed to last much longer than normal but he was able to get some of his homework done. Sadly for Danny he kept being woken up by the teacher telling him that there was no sleeping in detention. Tucker hoped he could make it out of there quickly and then he could sleep on the train. After 45 minutes of being tossed glares and doing homework detention was over and the trio made it out of school as quick as they possibly could not wanting to get caught up with Dash and Kwan. Thankfully Ida was sitting at the front of the school ready for them. Tucker's and Sam's things for the weekend were already in the trunk of the car and Danny had brought his to school with him so they didn't need to trek back to his house.

"Are you all excited?" Ida asked as she pulled out of the parking lot.

"Yeah!" They all responded excitedly, even Danny. But he quickly fell asleep in the back next to Tucker, leaning against the car window.

"He had a late night?" Ida questioned. And Tucker found it strange to hear this from the older woman because he still was finding it hard to wrap his mind around the fact that she knew about Danny and their activities.

Sam was the one to answer her, "Yeah, he barely got two hours of sleep last night and he was fighting ghost after ghost. Apparently Jack had been up into the late hours of the night and had the portal open for most of the night. Once Danny figured that out he closed it and finished off the rest of the ghosts and arrived late to English."

"Well, I'm happy that you all are taking this weekend. I know that not only Danny needs it but you both do as well."

When they arrived at the Amtrak station they had to get Danny up which was quiet the easiest and scariest thing to happen. Of course Tucker and Sam were used to doing this, and though they sometimes got nervous that Danny would actually end up hitting them with an ecto-beam before looking when he was woken up, it was still something that only sat in the back of their minds. Ida however was not used to this and let out a nervous gasp as Danny sat up instantly from his seat after Tucker shook his shoulder, an ectobeam lit up in his hand.

After informing her that it was just a reaction, she calmed down greatly and Tucker could tell that she wasn't happy that this was something so normal to them all, but she couldn't say anything about it. They all thanked her for driving them and told her that they would text her when their train left before getting out of the car, grabbed their belongings and headed into the building.

They didn't have to wait long for boarding to start – which Danny was grateful for – and they were easily able to find an empty group of four seats facing each other on the train car with a table between them.

They stored their duffle bags in the cargo hold above their seats and placed their book bags on the table between them. Tucker took one of the window seats while Sam sat in the outer seat opposite him and Danny took the other window seat.

"You can lay over me to get more comfortable." Sam told Danny who immediately complied. He laid the upper half of his body on Sam's legs, his head resting on her thigh. He bent his tall form up onto the seat. He kept his feet on the seat and leaned his bend knees up against the table before succumbing to sleep once again.

Tucker pulled out his phone charger and plugged into the outlet located in the arms of the chairs. When he looked up he noticed that Sam was threading her fingers through Danny's hair and a far-away look in her eyes.

"Can you tell what he's dreaming about?"

She shook her head, but kept stringing her fingers through his hair. "No, I think he's too tired to keep on one dream. It's mainly just flashes of pictures and happy comfortable feelings right now." She sighed and the far-away look diminished. "That hasn't happened in a while."

"Is it weird to have the link back?" He asked as she looked over at him.

"A bit." She shrugged, "But it's also pretty comforting. It helps knowing…"

"Ticket's please." The conductor interrupted them and Sam pulled their tickets from the side pocket of her backpack before handing them to him. After checking them he handed them back. "Have a nice trip." He told them before moving on down to the next person.

"Anyway, it helps knowing that he's there again. That I'm able to tell when he really needs our help."

Tucker nodded, "I hope that this weekend really helps him out."

She scoffed, "I hope it helps all of us." She looked back down at Danny, "I also hope that he'll speak with Jazz about what happened at the Headquarters. He still dreams about it, you know." Tucker nodded, because he did know – from both Danny and Sam. "I try to make sure he doesn't know when he drags me into those nightmares but it happens to both of us and I have those nightmares too that I don't want him to see."

"Like the Dan one?" He asked.

He still had those nightmares too about that time. They had actually gone back to Clockwork when Danny had told them that he had stopped them from being blown up again because they wanted those memories of the two hours that they had missed. Both Danny and Clockwork had been against this idea but him and Sam were adamant about getting those memories. However, Clockwork wasn't able to give them those back, so they were sent to see Mnemosyne in the Ancient Greek section of the Zone. Pandora was with them the entire time – happy to see them even if it was under other circumstances – and she led them to meet with Mnemosyne since she was the goddess of memory.

It had been a bit disorienting to have memories of the same time but of different events – especially drastic ones such as theirs – but it was nice to know what truly happened during that time. Even if both him and Sam had horrible nightmares of it still.

"Yes." Sam answered, and popped her feet up on the seat opposite him. An overhead announcement called out saying that the train was departing and they both texted their parents to tell them they were leaving. Sam pulled Danny's phone out of his pocket and sent a quick text to Jack for him, not wanting to wake him up.

"I'm still nervous sometimes."

"About?"

Tucker swallowed and whispered, "About him turning into another version of Dan." Then a bit louder and with half a smile, "I mean he already has the voice."

Sam breathed out a chuckle. "That's true. But I feel a bit nervous too."

Tucker felt as if a weight was lifted off his shoulders. He'd more recently started getting this feeling because every time Danny was extremely pissed off, Tucker could see slight flashes of red in his eyes. It made him feel better that Sam was on board with him as well.

"I kind of just push it back though," He admitted, "I guess that if it happened again though, CW would put us through the tests again." They had each been through alternate time lines where they had each gone pretty dark. But that hadn't happened in a long while.

"You're right. If CW did see that it was starting again, he would give them a warning like he typically has done. I think it's just the angry-dark ghost side coming out – I mean even the box ghost has one – but it's just a matter of keeping his temper in check because we know that that's typically how it comes out."

"I know." He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

"It's going to be fine. We're taking this weekend to calm down and I think it will help everything in the end."

He hopes it will. "You're right."

"Of course." She smirks at him.

He's never been truly afraid of Danny. He doesn't even have a sliver of fear in him now. Danny's his best friend and they've been through everything together and come back from it with an even stronger bond. But he does fear what Danny could become; what they all could become.

He remembers each of their alternative timelines so vividly that he could swear he was living in them when he dreamed at times. They've had five truly evil timelines that they've had to change starting with Dan. But the second one didn't have to deal with Danny turning dark. No, it was both him and Sam.

In that second Alternate Timeline Danny had been killed off by the Observants by another ghost because they were worried of another possible desolate future. After finding out this in that timeline both him and Sam went berserk; executing ghost after ghost after ghost. They went on a rampage through the Observants tower and brought them down. Of course they were beside themselves but they couldn't help it. Especially after everything Danny did.

In the third Alternate Timeline Sam was the one to turn completely dark. It had actually started with the death of her grandma. Then followed the fact that Danny was killed by Vlad who in turn killed Tucker and tried to kill Sam. Tucker remembered dying at the hands of Vlad and he had vowed to never let him get his hands on him ever again. After all of their deaths Undergrowth attacked and Sam went up and became a promising 'daughter' to him. When he was in control of her, she didn't have to worry about her emotions over losing them all.

In the fourth Alternate Timeline Danny had gone dark again, but unlike the previous time. He kept his ghost side, knowing what would happen if he didn't. But this time around him, Sam and Jazz had been in a school shooting. Danny had not been there because he had been off fighting Vlad and when he came back the school was surrounded by cops and medical teams. Danny had flown off the handle and exposed his secret to everyone before ripping into the shooters when he found out that they had killed them. Tucker only knew this because they had watched Danny's actions on one of Clockwork's screens.

What was worse about this time around however was that Danny had enough semblance of himself left that he was going to kill himself before he let himself be turned into that darkness. Through this experience they found out that Danny's obsession wasn't the town, or protecting the town; but it was them – his family. And without them his ghost side couldn't latch onto something new and began tearing into him.

In the last Alternate Timeline they experienced it was Tucker who went dark. He and his family had been away on vacation that June. He had found out through the news – checking every day to make sure Danny was still okay – that Fenton Works had been involved in an explosion taking not only their house but the neighboring houses with them. Everyone had perished and Sam was inside at the time as well. He remembered seeing that their funerals were going to be held in a week.

When he and his family got back he spent all that time trying to figure out what had caused the explosion. He knew that the Fenton's were smarter than to do something stupid as test something explosive in their own home and he knew that there had to be a different reason. During that time ghosts still attacked and he took out his anger on them until he was able to find out what had happened. He found out that the GIW had given the Fenton's ectoranium and blood blossoms to test out. They gave them a certain formula of 2 parts ectoranium, 3 parts blood blossoms and 2 parts ectoplasm. Apparently adding the ectoplasm to this mixture created the deadly explosion. And when he found out Tucker killed the Agent who had been in charge at the time.

He found it odd that they all had that power to kill inside them, but it only was set off if the other two had been killed. Tucker still wasn't sure if he was over the images of him killing the lead Agent back then but he knew he would not let it happen again.

A sudden jolt brought Tucker back into focus, his mind fuzzy and he opened his eyes to see darkness outside the window. He realized that he must have fallen asleep. He looked down at his watch to see the time was now 7:05 p.m. He sighed with relief. At least they hadn't missed the stop in St. Louis at 7:55 p.m.

He looked over at Sam to see that she had fallen asleep as well. He figured that this whole week had exhausted them all if they had fallen asleep on this train. He looks closer at them and sees that Sam's left hand was laced with Danny's right hand. He could easily see the black bracelet on Danny's wrist and the moon and star pendent on Sam's necklace. A tightness tugged at his chest, not from jealousy but for the injustice of everything. They had just gotten together and now it seemed as if the world was trying to pull them apart. It was being ripped away from them in the worst way possible.

He just wanted them to be happy. He wanted all of them to be happy. But he knows that right now that they'll just have to settle for the little moments they can steal away.

The rest of the ride he spend focusing on his homework. If he was going to stay awake the least he could do was be productive so he wouldn't have to worry about it the rest of the weekend.

When the train pulled into the station, the hard jostle that was associated with it, woke Sam and Danny up.

"Wha.. uh?" Danny asked sitting up quickly, fists at the ready. Thankfully his ectobeams were put away. "Where are we?"

"We just pulled into St. Louis." Tucker told him and a smile split Danny's face washing the tiredness away.

"This is great." He said excitedly.

"Slow down, boy." Sam smiled herself, "You'll get the chance, let the train actually stop."

"Ha ha, very funny." Danny rolled his eyes.

When the announcement came over the train that passengers were able to depart the trio grabbed their things and followed the few people off the train and made their way outside. Tucker smiled when he noticed that Sam and Danny were holding hands. Sam had informed him that her and Danny were making this weekend 'Operation: Weekend Getaway' and that they were not going to let anything stop them from being together this weekend.

They walked up stairs into the building that opened up at the end where there were groups of people waiting to meet their friends and family. Tucker instantly spotted Jazz in the crowd and not because of her red hair but because of the large sign she was holding over her head.

 **Brother**

 **Sister-in-law**

 **Awesome Friend**

Danny let go of Sam's hand and rushed through the small crowd to his sister. She let out a squeal as Danny enveloped her in a hug, swinging her around in a circle. Danny's loud rumbling laugh reached him and Sam and Tucker knew that this weekend was already meeting its promise.

 **October 3rd, 2014**

 **Friday**

 **Amtrak Station - St. Louis**

 **8:10 p.m.**

* * *

Alright, so what'd you think?! Can't wait to see your reactions. And who loved the sign I had Jazz make? I thought it was adorable. Lol.

 ***Answers to Reviews:**

 **Blue11msu:** Trust me there will definitely be 'bonding' time between the boys and Charlie. He's still going to be at the house this next week even though his parents are going back home, so it's going to get interesting. ;) Also, about the language. Yeah, I'm not worried about using but I know that if I don't put up a claim stating that the language is a bit more than 'T' rating then I'm going to get PMs like crazy telling me that I can't use that language. So yeah, kinda sucks but oh well. Not like I'm not going to keep using that language. :)

 **ShadowDragon357:** I'm happy that you're really liking Tucker. I've tried to make him more mature than he was in the show and not just the shows comedic relief at times. Also yes! Ida will totally know about all those things. And Tyler will come back to haunt us and I promise hilarity will ensue. Also after I post this chapter I'm going to go read your PM's you sent me and respond. Sorry again. I don't mean to be so bad about responding!


	26. Jazz! Pt I

**Author's note at bottom.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or the song 'Young God' by Halsey.**

* * *

 **And I've been sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool**

 **For a while now, drowning my thoughts out with the sounds**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Jazz! Pt. I**

 **Word count: 4,117**

 **3/18/16**

* * *

 **October 3rd, 2014**

 **Friday**

 **Amtrak Station - St. Louis**

 **8:10 p.m.**

"Jazz!" Sam exclaimed as she looked at the sign that now laid on the floor of the building; forgotten in extensive hug Danny was giving her. "That sign's not exactly accurate." A low blush coated her cheeks.

"What sign?" Danny asked and put Jazz back on the ground. When he glanced down and read what Jazz had written about Sam, his cheeks immediately flamed and he tried to speak but only small blathering sounds came out making Tucker laugh.

Jazz only rolled her eyes and picked her sign back up. "I had actually written 'sister' originally but then I decided that 'in-law' works just as well.

"We only just started dating two weeks ago!" Danny gets out.

Jazz snorted and began leading them towards the doors that would lead them to the parking lot. "And if you both hadn't been so stubborn you could have been together since you were 15."

Sam sighs and shares a quick glance at Danny who is giving off waves of nervousness towards her. "Let's just get past this first year."

"Well, I thought it was great! They're just being stubborn." Tucker says as he slips up to walk next to Jazz.

She laughed and gave him a side hug, "Thanks."

Danny and Sam only rolled their eyes in response. When they arrived at Jazz's car they loaded up and started on their way back to the Wash U. campus.

"Alright, do you wanna go out tonight or tomorrow for your birthday, Danny?" Jazz asked once she had pulled out of the parking lot and was on a regular street.

"Definitely tomorrow. Could we just order a couple of pizza's tonight and just stay in?"

"Long night?" Jazz looked over at him in his position in the passenger seat.

"Yes." He laid his head on the window.

"I want to check that cut when we get up to Jazz's room." Sam said, "To make sure if we need to pull the stitches out or not. You used the regular stitching right?"

"Yeah."

"Alright, we'll need to make sure that your skin hasn't started healing over it, yet."

The trio expected Jazz to be very vocal about hearing that Danny had gotten a cut, but she surprisingly or rather unsurprisingly skipped to the big topic of the past week. "You have to tell me about Charlie. Sam's already texted me a bit of information but nothing much. What's happened this past week? I need details!"

The first tell her about the meeting the boys had with Charlie. She quite enjoyed the fact that they scared him a little bit.

"You guys need to play nice with him at least a little bit. But still show him that Sam doesn't belong to him."

"Me and Danny were actually thinking of taking him out for a regular night, with Sam, and see what he thinks of Amity Park when he's not being harbored in Sam's house. And then Sam will get up to go to the bathroom or something and then we'll warn him that if he hurts her he'll with he never agreed to this."

"You guys!" Jazz immediately reprimanded and Danny hadn't realized he actually missed that tone in her voice, until this moment. "You need to be careful when doing that because of the power card he holds."

"We will." Both of them answer.

Then they inform her of the picture that appeared on Wednesday and the tabloid headline about Phantom and Sam dating. Jazz was immediately confused because she hadn't heard anything about it. But she admitted to being incredibly busy the past week getting used to school and a job in the library.

So they tell her everything as they make it back to Wash U. and make their way up to Jazz's room. From Paulina slapping Sam, to showing Jazz the picture and the physical fight that Paulina and Sam had gotten into. Plus all their information they found on the picture, the discussion with the GIW and Danny and Tucker getting the fight on Thursday and lastly about Ida knowing the truth about Danny and all of their late night activities and what Sam's parents thought on the matter.

"Well, I'm not shocked that Ida knows. It's like when I found out. I've suspected for a while that she's known, happy to know that I was correct. Now, about the fighting." Jazz starts as she sits on her bed and while the trio started to make up a bed for themselves on her floor. "I understand that it must have been a bit built up from the past week from what you've told me, but that does not mean that you condone their fights." She sighed and leaned heavily back on her hands.

"And we most definitely can't let the GIW get Sam or Danny. But they'll probably try and use Sam as bait to get to you, Danny. Which of course would work."

The each admit that they hadn't actually thought of that. They're all just so happy that they have Jazz sometimes because their minds have been going a mile a minute and it's nice to have that outside person. But they kind of want to take a break from the last week at the moment.

"How have your classes and stuff been going?" Sam asked, fixing the large quilt overtop the mattress topper Jazz was letting them use and the folded up second quilt. They had laid out the mattress topper horizontally that way when they went to sleep their top halves would at least be on it, and they used Jazz's two heavy quilts she brought from home to lay their lower halves on.

"Good. I have to get all of my basic requirements out of the way before I can dive into the really cool things I want to study – mainly because they need prerequisites. But I love both of my psych classes. And Calc I is kind of hard but I go to the study hours that the TA holds and work with her on it. And Chem and English 1000 are extremely easy, but once those are out of the way I can go into the harder classes."

"How many math classes do you have to take?" Danny questioned finally taking a seat beside her on the bed.

"Only a couple more and then I'll be good to go. I just have to make sure I get a C or higher in each of them to move on, on schedule. And besides that I've taken up a job at the library, which is nice because I do love being around my books and I can still get my homework done with I'm there. But I've spoken with my RA and I've been thinking that once next year comes around that I want to be an RA. The school also pays for my room and board and half of my meal plan for next year which would cut down on my expenses. And then I joined a book club and we meet twice a month to discuss the book and kind of just chit-chat too."

Danny felt incredible pride that his sister was fitting in already. "I'm so happy that you're having such a great time." At least if one of them got to go, they should enjoy it while it lasts.

"Thanks, little brother." She smiled at him and ruffled his hair. He pretended to not like it, but really he loved it when she did that. "Have you guys registered to take your ACT's yet?"

"No." The trio answered simultaneously.

"You guys!" Jazz chides and they all feel a spark of guilt run through them. "You need to do it soon so you can have time just in case you need to take it again. And start applying early to colleges."

"I'll make a note on Carol." Tucker says and typed out a note on his IPhone. As he does Jazz received a call on her phone informing her that the pizza man was downstairs. She and Sam made their way downstairs to grab the regular and vegan pizza before heading back upstairs to her room.

When they get back up and everybody has their slices Jazz asked, "I've waited long enough. But I want to see the bracelet and what you gave Sam, Danny." She looked excitedly between them both. "Sam already sent me a picture of them both but I want to see them in person." She held out her hands, her fingers twitching for the pieces.

Sam and Danny laughed but took off their bracelet and necklace and handed them over to her to look over. As she goes over each of them the trio ate and watched as her eyes focused on the detail that Danny took when making the moon and star.

"I really like them both." She finally said and handed them both back to their owner. "You're extremely talented with your ice now, Danny. You should think about selling some pieces. You know ice sculptures and figurines and whatnot."

"I could." He shrugged, "But it's ice. What would I tell people that it's made out of since it doesn't melt?"

"Well, it looks enough like glass that you could probably just say that their made by glass blowing."

"You think that would work?" Tucker asked looking at Sam's necklace along with Danny.

"Probably. You just can't show people your 'workshop'." Jazz shrugged.

"Huh." Danny mused and looked at Sam's pendent. "I like that idea." He looked away from Sam and to his sister giving her a smile. He lifted his hand and used his ice powers to create a small version of a book.

"Danny!" Jazz gasped as he placed the ice into her hand. "It's beautiful. Thank you." She reached over and hugged him.

Danny chuckled, "Your welcome."

"Okay, that's two people. I want one now!" Tucker complained around a mouth full of pizza.

The others rolled their eyes, "And what would you like?" Danny asked, grabbing another piece of pizza.

"I don't know. Something cool." He shrugged and bit off another piece of his pizza.

Danny chuckled and moved his hands around. They all looked over at him and Sam and Jazz laughed loudly when they saw that Danny had created a mini-Tucker with the words 'I'm Tucker Foley. That's TF for Too Fine.'

"I like it!" Tucker got up from the floor and grabbed the figure out of Danny's hands, "Thanks man. And you two shut-up it's awesome."

"Yeah, Tuck. Whatever you say." Sam and Jazz shared a smile as Tucker looked it over.

They spent the rest of the time finishing their dinner and talking about the little things that happened over the weeks that Jazz hadn't been home. When they were all finally full they cleaned up their mess and decided to head to bed early considering their busy days – especially Danny's. The boys changed their clothes in the bathroom because Danny really didn't want to see his sister naked and wasn't going to let Tucker stay in there as well; while Sam and Jazz changed in Jazz's room and came back in when Sam gave them the 'okay'.

The trio was laid out on the floor with Sam between Tucker and Danny each on their own pillow that they remembered to bring along with their own blankets. When they fell asleep Danny and Sam laid facing the other and Tucker rolled with his back facing them – mainly to give them a sense of privacy. He wanted to have as much time together because they would barely get these chances. Unsurprisingly it was quite easy for everyone to fall asleep quickly.

Though for two of them the peacefulness didn't last long.

Sam and Danny were sharing a dream again. They weren't sure who started it, but it didn't matter because they were both in it.

 _It had started with Dan._

 _They had been back in Amity Park in their respective spots during the big showdown with Dan. Nothing irregular happened within the dream, at least anything that they weren't expecting. But as the explosion erupted around Sam and Danny screamed out for them they both felt as if the dream tipped on its side and they stood together in the middle of Amity Park. People ran around them, screaming out in terror but they couldn't place where the fear was coming from._

" _We're dreaming." Sam said looking at Danny who nodded in agreement having finally realized that they were sharing a dream._

" _Do you know what's going on?" Danny asked as the crowd continued to part around him, faces blurring._

" _No, idea. Never had a dream start like this. Not one that I remember at least." She answered._

 _They both moved forward, the crowd continued to part around them. After they walked ten paces they saw a green ecto-blast hit the side of a building, denting the structure, followed by a crazy laugh that made them both stop in their tracks._

 _Plasmius appeared in front of them and the crowd disappeared. He threw a pink ecto-blast towards someone that Danny and Sam couldn't see behind a building. Three more people appeared at it shocked both of them. On the street at the base of the stood Valerie in her red huntress outfit fighting Tucker and Sam. Except Sam was different; she wore the green dress from the time she had been taken control of by Undergrowth and the vines protruded from her back as she looked upon Valerie with total green eyes._

" _What?" Sam whispered and watched as her and the dream version of Tucker fought off Valerie together. She realized that Tucker didn't seem bothered by the fact that she was like that and wondered what that was about._

" _You think you can beat me for this you Fruit Loop?" She heard Danny his voice echoing like it did when he was in his ghost form and turned away from her dream self to look up in the sky where Danny's dream-self appeared along with a dream version of Dani by Danny's side._

 _Dani still wore the same outfit she typically wore, Danny however wore a long black cape with a white undertone that billowed out behind him, the Crown of Fire glowed ghostly green on his head and the Ring of Rage was secured on his right hand. And finally his eyes glowed an extra bright green as he held a large ball of concentrated ectoplasm in his hand._

" _You think you can do better than me?" Dream-Danny fired his ecto-blast followed by Dani's own blast. Both hit Vlad square in the chest, cutting through the shield he put up to protect himself, and knocked him to the ground a few feet from where Danny and Sam stood watching it unfold._

 _Dream-Danny and Dani descended in their flight, and crossed both of their arms over their chests. "You could never survive this." Dream-Danny spread his arms wide demonstrating the power he now held. "And you won't survive this fight." He glared at Vlad who started pushing himself up, moving as quick as he could away from both Phantom's._

" _Please, Daniel. Danielle. I won't… I'll do anything." Vlad pleaded as Dream-Danny and Dani floated above him._

 _Sam caught red in the corner of her eye and watched as her dream-self hit Valerie hard in the chest and sent her skidding across the pavement, only to stop a foot or so from Vlad. Her dream-self floated next to Tucker as they made their way next to dream-Danny and Dani._

" _You both have no reason to be here anymore. You've merely becoming pests in the plan for the bigger picture." Dream-Sam voiced and raised a hand. One of the vine attached to her shot out and wrapped itself around Valerie's neck. Tightening, making her hands come up to grasp the vines._

" _You are something to see, Vlad. Begging me for your life. But I've done that too many times with you and I'll return the favor." Danny said. "Dani, if you could join me." He turned to her and created an icicle with a sharp point, Dani created one as well._

 _Sam turned to her Danny and grabbed his hand. She could see the visible sweat beads on his forehead as he watched the scene; transfixed. "Danny, we have to wake up." She shook his shoulder with her other hand, but he didn't move. His breathing picked up in pace as the dream version of himself and Dani pulled back their arms getting ready to throw their deadly icicles. She ignored her dream-self as she unwrapped the vines from Valerie's neck. She figured that Valerie was dead, but she didn't want to look, she didn't want to be that._

" _Danny, you are not that. You won't let that happen._ Wake up _."_

Sam gasped awake, eyes clouded in the darkness of the room, her face pushed not against her pillow but skin. Finally registering where she was, she realized that her head was tucked into Danny's neck, and she had an arm wrapped around him; their legs were a jumbled mess however. But she couldn't dwell on their positions as she felt Danny's breathing increase and comprehended that Danny hadn't followed her out of the nightmare.

"Danny." She whispered and shook his shoulder as she sat up as best as she could with his arms tight around her. "Wake up." She reached for his mind with hers and sent what she hoped were signals to be awake. _'Danny, it's not real. Wake up.'_ She reached out with her mind and was rewarded with a gasp, a jerk, and his blue eyes flying open.

"Hey, it's okay. Breathe, Danny." She told him reaching up to cup his cheeks and made him look at her in the dark. She knew his eyes could do so better than hers. His hands stayed tight around her body, but she ignored them, making sure to focus on his breathing and keeping quiet since she knew he hated when they all were up and worrying about him.

"Sam… that…I …"

"Shh… breathe, Danny. Like Jazz taught you. In through your nose out through your mouth." She demonstrated once and she felt him try and follow her. "Again, come on." As she tried getting him to breathe her mind was filled with the images of their nightmare and the small bit that she missed where Danny had watched his dream-self and Dani kill Vlad. Followed by the image of Vlad and Valerie lying on the ground, their eyes wide and lifeless. It freaked Sam out but she had to calm Danny down before she could start freaking out too.

It took a few minutes but Danny finally had his breathing back to normal and he buried his face in her neck and moved his hands off her body only to replace them fully with his arms and she was wrapped in a tight yet comforting hug.

"It's not going to happen." She whispered in his ear and ran a hand through his thick locks. "None of that will happen."

"But how do you know?" He sighed against her. "It's not like something similar hasn't happened before."

"Well let's start with some of the basic things." She took a deep breath and saying these allowed as she thought of them would help her own mind about the nightmare. "One: Dani doesn't have ice powers. We know that for a fact because she doesn't have the same core temperature as you or anyone in the Far Frozen. Two: I can't gave ghost powers. So there is no way that I would be showing up and doing… what I did. Three: If we did do those things, Tucker would not be following in our footsteps. He would be putting a stop to us. He would not let us do that again. Four: I do not hate Valerie enough to kill her. In fact I don't hate her, I marginally dislike her. Five: You know that having Vlad suffer alive would be worse for him than actually killing him, therefore in no way would you actually kill him. Six: You would _not_ wear a stupid cape, even if it did look really cool."

She let him take in what she said, following his line of thought making sure it stayed on a steady path. "You're right." She sighed with relief but could feel the next statement before he spoke it aloud. "But we still don't know what will happen if I become the Ghost King. There are too many variables to really know." He pulled his head out from her neck and rested his chin on her shoulder.

She continued to thread her finger through his hair. "True. But you have to trust yourself and _us_ , to know that you won't let that power, that darkness corrupt you. And if it started to, that you would trust me, Tucker and Jazz and Dani to ask for help. We won't leave your side no matter what and we'll be there to remind you of who you are if you need it."

They sat in silence for a few seconds before Danny finally said, "I love you guys, you know that right?"

She chuckled, "Yes. All of us know that. And we love you too, Danny." He turned his head and kissed the side of her neck softly.

They stayed in that position for a while – Sam wasn't quite sure for how long exactly. She sent him calming thoughts trying to get him to go back to sleep. But it seemed to be working more for her than for him. When she practically fell asleep against him Danny moved a little away from her before lying them both back down on their makeshift bed, pulling her on top of him. She cuddled into is chest and Danny situated their blankets to cover them both before she fell asleep to Danny's arms wrapped around her and his cool temperature seeping into her own body.

Danny himself couldn't follow in Sam's sleepy wake. The nightmare kept running through his mind and no matter what he did, those images would flash behind his eye lids each time he closed his eyes.

He sighed ran his hand over his face with the arm that wasn't tucked under Sam. The dream was a piece of everything he feared about becoming the Ghost King. That darkness was still inside of him ever since the encounter with Dan. And sure it had actually been Vlad's ghost half that was evil and corrupted his own ghost half, but that didn't mean he, as himself now, didn't have that darkness. Danny had found out through Clockwork that most ghosts do have a darkness with in them, but it depends on how it manifests – if it does at all.

Ever since then and the fact that he's been through an alternate timeline twice already of him jumping from the path, it made him extremely nervous about the power he had within himself. Now of course if he became the Ghost King he didn't know what would happen. He knew his power would grow immensely and it wasn't the fact that he couldn't control the power – which he knew he could, but that would more than likely raise the darkness in him and make it harder to push down and not succumb to its caresses.

He did not want that to happen.

He didn't want his family to have to pull him back from the ledge.

Danny looked down at Sam who was still curled up on his chest, fingers lightly gripping his shirt. He could see through her mind and tell that she was enjoying a peaceful dream, finally and he was happy that she was able to be so calm and collected when he couldn't be. They fit so well together that way.

He knew he would do anything for her – for each member of his family – but for her especially. Danny pushed a lock of hair back to see her face better. He also knew that he could hold the darkness back better with Sam in his mind again. He sighed and closed his eyes. She was right, he decided. He needed to talk with Jazz about what happened with the Guys in White before talking with her and Tucker; he needed help.

He decided he would talk with Jazz tomorrow and not push it off till Sunday before focusing on Sam's happy dreams and succumbing to sleep once more.

 **October 4th, 2014**

 **Saturday (Friday Night)**

 **Jazz's Dorm Room**

 **2:30 a.m.**

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 **Authors Note:**

*BTW: have not looked over this chapter at all! If you spot anything shoot me a PM!

You guys! Apparently I just suck I can't get back on track. So here's what I'm going to do. LISTEN UP IT'S IMPORTANT. I'm changing my update day to Friday's. I've noticed I'm better able to plan the chapter out over the weekends now and write them out during the week. For some reason it's taken me from January to March to figure that out. And I'm sorry.

SO UPDATE DAY IS NOW ON **FRIDAY**. **NOT SUNDAY**!

I will not try and get caught up. I'm going to take my time because this is a story that I want to read. That's the whole reason why I started writing this story because no one else was making this story! LOL so if I don't like it and the way it's written then I'm not going to post it because I post this because I want to and not by demands. (sorry I think I ranted slightly. OOPS!)

But you can probably expect the next chapter on Sunday because when I wrote this chapter, ch.27 was actually a part of it, but I didn't like the way it connected so I decided to split it.

Anyway, I hope that you liked this chapter even though it was short!

I'm so happy that everybody loved the whole alternate realities for the whole trio! I was taking a chance with it and you'll see how this ties in later :) but it might not be in this book. Just fair warning.

For the people who forgot, this is going to be a **super duper huge story**! Just a reminder.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of my reviewers! I love you guys so much! **The Talent, ShadowDragon357, Snoopykid, Phantom Fire1, SamxDanny, Blue11msu, .23, wolfmoon21, Capitolblonde, Krusher, ShinyMudkipGal, Guest Georgia, CaptainDorito, GlraxaystarfireKatnissbluerose**

(Btw if I didn't mention your name (2 of you) it's because your reviews weren't actually reviews and they probably should have been PMs.

 ***Answers to reviews!:**

 **The Talent:** Your welcome! You'll have to wait and see about Tucker's parents. But it won't be in the next 10 chapters if that's what you're looking for.

 **Phantom Fire1:** No.

 **SamxDanny:** I know I loved making the sign! It was one of my favorite parts lol. Thank you for saying that you loved the AU timelines :) I'm so excited that you liked them so much! And evil! Honey the best ones always have a little bad in 'em ;) hahahahahaha I have no idea what they would do without Ida. Probably bust Danny's secret honestly lol

 **Capitolblonde** : Thanks for all three of your reviews! It's nice to know that there's some readers out there that no matter what they review every chapter :)

 **Krusher:** Dude! You made it to chapter 25! I thought you said you weren't going to read past ch.2? lol And I would do what you said in your review but 1) that's too easy. And 2) I want them to have a more realistic approach. But you're slightly heading in the right direction. Slightly.

 **ShinyMudkipGal:** it's okay that you didn't review ch.24! I love hearing from you whenever you can :) that sucks about your caps lock, hope it gets fixed soon!

 **Guest Georgia:** Wow! I'm so happy that you love the story so far!

 **GlraxaystarfireKatnissbluerose:** Hi! Just wanted to say I sent you a PM and if you could please go check it out that would be awesome :)


	27. Weekend of Relaxation

Well, I guess better late then never. Maybe I'll just say that I'll update once teen Friday and Monday. That way I stop disappointing you guys. Anyway, here's the chapter! Finally!

Thank you to all of my reviewers! The Talent, CaptainDorito, SamXDanny, mrenteeia99, Phantom Fire1, Guest Georgia, ShadowDragon357, miateacup, Rocky Rooster, Capitolblonde, w0lf pack.

 ****ANSWERS TO REVIEWERS AT BOTTOM: The Talent, CaptainDorito, SamXDanny, Guest Georgia, ShadowDragon357, Capitolblonde**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom (If I did episodes would never air on time lol). And I don't own the lyrics to the song 'Just One Yesterday' by Fall Out Boy.**

* * *

 **If heaven's grief brings hell's reign**

 **Then I'd trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Weekend of Relaxation**

 **Word count: 7,679**

 **3/29/16**

* * *

 **October 4th, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **Jazz's Dorm Room**

 **9:30 a.m.**

Tucker was the first to wake up that morning and was surprised to find his legs sprawled over Danny's and Sam's while his upper torso was curved around and his head rested comfortably against his pillow. He chuckled to himself and slowly moved his legs off of his cuddling best friends not wanting to disturb them. When he was sure that they both wouldn't wake up he grabbed his IPhone from where it was charging and took a few pictures of them sleeping together. Once he was satisfied he decided that since he was the first one awake he'd grab a shower before anyone else. Once Tucker had gathered up a change of clothes, his bathroom supplies and one of Jazz's towels he headed for the bathroom. Thankfully, he remember Jazz mentioning that her two of her roommates had gone home this weekend and the other was typically with her boyfriend so he didn't have to worry about stealing shower times from her roommates.

When Tucker got back Sam was just getting up along with Jazz. She was slowly disentangling from Danny trying to make sure she didn't disrupt his light stupor by accident.

"Sleep well?" Tucker asked her giving her a smirk as he stored his bag of toiletries.

"After the _nightmare_ , yeah." Sam shot back quietly.

Jazz and Tucker both turned to look at her with questioning eyes. "Are you okay?" Jazz quickly asked, making her way towards her in the small room.

"Yeah." Sam folded her arms across her chest and both Tucker and Jazz knew that she wasn't by the defensive position she was taking. "But I know that Danny will need to talk about it. But wait for him to bring it up, Jazz."

"You guys had another shared dream?" Tucker asked and Sam nodded before moving towards her bag next to Tuckers'.

"They're fairly common with us, Tuck. No need to freak out or anything. Though this time it was kind of hard to differentiate who pulled who into the nightmare." Sam rummaged in her bag and pulled out a pair of clothes and toiletries.

Jazz reached out her hand towards Sam, her mouth open to ask her if she wanted to talk about it but quickly shut her mouth and put her arm down when Sam had turned around from gathering her things. Jazz knew that when Sam was ready to talk about it – most likely once Danny had already brought it up – she would come to her.

"Is it okay if I hop in?" Sam asked already heading towards the door.

"Yeah." Jazz answered and Sam disappeared leaving her alone with Tucker and a sleeping Danny.

"Do you think you could help me on this English Homework? Lancer has us discussing 'The Catcher in the Rye'."

"Yeah, sure. As long as you can help me through a few calculus problems later." Tucker agreed and both took residence on her bed, spreading out their homework. Sam finished her shower quickly and Jazz hopped in next.

At this point Danny finally began to stir from his now curled up position among the pillows and blankets.

"Morning, Sleeping Beauty." Sam chuckled as Danny rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

"Morning." He mumbled and fully sat up, eyes half lidded. "Wha – time s'it?" He yawned and stretched his arms over his head. Sam's eyes immediately narrowed onto the toned pale skin that showed where his shirt had ridden up. She heard Tucker snicker and she reached over and pinched him on the leg, not looking away from Danny as Tucker yelped in pain.

"It's 10:15 a.m." Sam answered him.

"Whoa!" His eyes shot fully open instantly. "I slept that late?"

Both Sam and Tucker shrugged, "Yeah."

"You needed it."

Danny stood up from the makeshift bed and stretched again, "Where's Jazz?"

"Shower." Both of them answered.

"Cool, I think I'll hop in after her." He finished stretching and stepped towards the bed, eyes locking with Sam. "Morning." He smiled and leaned down, kissing her on the lips. After a sure sound kiss he pulled away a bit.

"Morning." Sam breathed.

"Good gods, you two are so sweet it's sickening."

"Good." Sam smirked and threw Tucker a glance, "That means we're starting our weekend off correctly."

"Which is how?" Jazz asked as she entered the room, her wet hair tied back in a long French braid similar to Sam's shorter version.

"Grossing Tucker out." Sam answered and Danny stood up tall again.

"Can't see anything wrong with that." Jazz chuckled as Tucker gave an indignant shout of ' _Hey_ '. "Glad to see you're awake, little brother."

"Morning, Jazz." He smiled at her. "Shower free?"

"All yours."

Danny kissed her on the cheek, grabbed his things and headed to the shower. Once he was back they began discussing what they wanted to do for the day.

"Well, let's see, we could go to Forest Park. The Zoo is there and so is the Art Museum and they're both free. Or we could just walk around it; they have some pretty cool things there. Um, the Arch or the Botanical Gardens. Sam I think you would really like it there. And the only other place I can think of is the Delmar Loop; it's a sort of shopping area, like a small downtown. It's where Fitz's is, you know that Root Beer? Apparently they have a restaurant too."

"I vote the Zoo!" Tucker immediately said once Jazz was done speaking.

"Yeah, I'm good with that." Danny shrugged. He really didn't care what they all got up to as long as they spent the day together.

"We can only go to the Zoo if we go to the Art Museum or the Botanical Gardens." Sam proclaimed. She still was not a fan of zoo's but she was more mature in the matters compared to her younger self. She knew that the animals already in captivity had to stay there for their own sakes and trying to 'release' them would only hurt the animals. She did better now by advocating for animal rights in legal terms.

"Yeah, alright." Both boys conceded.

Jazz coughed, "Whipped."

"Jazz!" They both cried out but laughed because, well, it was kind of true.

"Alright, so the Zoo and the Art Museum it is." Jazz said. They all gathered their purses and wallets before heading out to the lounge area where they would take the elevator down, then out to Jazz's car.

It didn't take them very long to get to the Zoo, but parking was a nightmare. They ended up finding a spot all the way back to the Boathouse which was a 15 minute walk. Since they were so close and Tucker kept complaining he was hungry, they decided to eat first.

Since the restaurant had just opened there weren't many people there so they were able to get a table as soon as they arrived. They were surprised to hear that the Boathouse had paddleboats for two people and you could take them out on the extremely large pond that the restaurant sat on.

"We are so coming back and doing this later." Danny said when he found out about it.

The others immediately agreed. As they ate they discussed regular things: how the ghosts were, current discussions in class, ghost 101, if the Fenton's created any new weapons or if they were still focused on improving their older models.

When they were done they made their way to the Zoo, surprised at how busy it was. But they figured that since the Zoo was free, that it was the best place to go on a nice Saturday in October. But they enjoyed walked around and seeing the animals. Danny and Sam walked along with their hands intertwined, happy to be able to be out in public again with their relationship. It felt nicer than they thought it would.

They had finished going through the seal exhibit and were making their way towards the Reptile house when Danny spoke up to Sam through their mind link.

' _Do you think that you could take Tucker with you into the Reptile house? I kinda want to talk with Jazz.'_

" _No Problem. Let me know when you guys are done.'_

He turned and smiled at her, _'I will.'_

' _And Danny? Thank you. For speaking to her.'_ She leaned up and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. "Hey Tuck!" She pulled away from Danny and looped her arm through Tucker's. "Me. You. And the Reptile House."

"What!" Tucker asked in shock as she began pulling toward the exhibit, "I'm not going in there with you alone!" He complained and tried to pry himself from her grip. But it was to no avail.

"Yes, you are. Now stop being a big baby. See you guys in a bit." Sam waved at Jazz and Danny as she continued to drag Tucker away.

"So we're _not_ going in there?"

"Actually, I was hoping we could talk." Danny said, rubbing the back of his neck.

Jazz was slightly surprised but secretly happy that he finally wanted to talk with her. "You wanna keep moving or sit down?"

"Let's sit down on that bench over there." Danny suggested and they took a seat on a bench on the other side of the large walkway opposite of the Reptilian House.

Jazz waited for him to talk. It was how they always did their little therapy talks – though Jazz didn't really use that name. It took him a full minute to finally speak – the quickest it's ever taken.

"I've been having flashbacks of the time I was at the GIW Headquarters. Nightmares too. More than normal, and I keep dragging Sam into them." He folded his hands together and leaned his forearms on his legs.

"Is that what happened last night?"

"Did we wake you up?" He asked and Jazz could tell through the tone in his voice that he was already sorry for doing so.

"It's okay, Danny. I was able to go back to sleep once I realized that Sam had a handle on things."

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Then yeah, yeah that's what happened. And Sam… ugh, since the GIW are now going to take Sam and you're probably right about the fact that they'll use her to get me to come out, the nightmares have been more frequent."

"Since Wednesday?" Danny only nodded in response. "What happens in the dreams? Or what happens _most often_?"

"Well, it typically starts with the GIW holding me in that room and doing what ever they want." Jazz noted the hard tone his voice took. "Or it'll be when I'm fighting against Dan – that was last night. But before that the GIW would typically start experimenting with Blood Blossoms on me. And then… then it will change and all of you are there and…"

"Who, all of who?" She prodded.

"You, Tucker, Sam and Dani. Even though she wasn't there when you guys rescued me, she always shows up. Anyway, you all just stand there looking at me and I tell you to leave to get out before they take you guys too but you just stare at me with blank expressions. And then the dream with shift again.

"And I'm placed in front of all of you and you guys are strapped to table like I am and instead of doing things to me they start in on you all."

Jazz makes sure to keep her tone calm when she says, "What are these things?"

"I was asked questions about the Zone and who I was and who others were and they never let up on the whole Ghost King thing. They wanted to know if it was true, and the power that would come with it, who it would go to if I wasn't the next King. And if I didn't answer they would bun me with electricity and then when they got more annoyed they brought out the blood blossoms."

Jazz instantly remembers from the videos that they had gotten from the GIW. But she didn't say a word, because he was speaking about his own experiences and not the nightmares which was exactly her endgame all along with this conversation. He kept his eyes on the ground as he spoke, body in the same position since the start.

"But after the questions they wanted to run tests. They took samples of my blood," Jazz remembered Tucker taking the samples of Danny's blood – well, ectoplasm – when they had gotten to the room Danny had been held in. "They tested my healing by cutting me open in random places and then eventually broke my bones because they were in complete surprise that I even had bones! Or at least they thought what resembled bone." He ground his teeth together.

"But then there were times where they would just do whatever they wanted. And they told me they were doing it because they hated me. So they burned me and cut me open and broke my bones and electrocuted me till I thought I would revert back. But those damned cuffs were the only things keeping them from finding out my secret. And it's just worse because I don't care that they did what they did to me because they hated me. But being restrained and unable to fight back? That's what frightened me the most.

"Sometimes when it got so bad and they would ask a question, I would answer. Just so I wouldn't be burned again or electrocuted – that was worse than the blood blossoms –" Jazz didn't need an explanation why, "and sometimes after that they would just study me. My heartbeat, brain activity, speech, bones. They wanted to know why I was so different. Why they heard ghosts calling me 'The Halfa'.

"When you guys… when you came in and saved me, they were about to dissect me." Jazz sucked in a sharp breath. "They were going to open me up and mess with me as they'd done with my mind."

"Your mind?" Jazz asked quietly and reached a hand over to rest on her brothers' shoulder. He flinched but instantly relaxed under touch upon realizing she wasn't a threat.

"Yeah. They had me in another room – my cell if you would. It was small so I had to sit and couldn't stand and it was all white and oh so quiet. It drove me crazy I thought I was losing myself. My only focus was on you guys. But I wasn't in the room for very long for anything to set in. But by God if I see another plain white room again…it won't be pretty. The first time that they took me out of that room I tried to escape. But I couldn't do much because of the device that was disabling my powers."

Jazz nodded and rubbed his back, "I know. I saw how you tried your best to get out of there." They had gotten the tapes from the elevator as well. Danny sat there quietly for a few minutes and Jazz rubbed his back soothingly. She knew that it had to be hard for him to say it all aloud but he would benefit from it in the end. Because keeping it all bottled up inside just made everything worse. Especially for him.

"How could I have been so stupid?" His sudden bite in his tone jarred her. But she didn't deter him knowing that she could reason with him better once everything was laid out on the table.

"And I know what you thinking but I was. I shouldn't have been caught by the GIW or let _Vlad_ get the drop on me. And you know the only reason why I haven't gone after him so far is because of all this other craziness that's been going on, like I don't have time to deal with his crazy stupid shit. But even so it was all my fault.

"I shouldn't have let my guard down because Vlad's been so quiet. I know that was bad and I seriously want to go yell and scream at Vlad but it was my own fault _anyway_ , because I didn't check my surroundings. And the whole thing with the GIW, I really didn't want that to happen: you guys having to rescue me. I'm supposed to be the hero, not the other way around. I just want all of this to stop. I feel like I'm drowning with the GIW in Amity and Vlad being quiet and now the Ghost King thing and this whole rumor on Phantom and Sam. Oh! And let's not forget that a supposedly 'Higher Power' is awakened in the Zone but we know nothing on them.

"And yeah, I feel selfish because I want to take a break, but I can't. I have to keep pushing on even with your guys added help and I know that Tucker and Sam are stressed too. But sometimes, "He looked up from the ground for the first time since they sat down and looked her straight in the eye.

"Sometimes, I just want to go back to the way things were before the accident."

He quickly looked away from her and the shame he felt was clearly etched on his face for saying that aloud. He breathed heavy from his rant and Jazz made sure to wait 30 seconds before speaking to make sure he wasn't about to start up again.

"Alright, listen up and answer my questions when I ask." She saw him nod and proceeded.

"Yes, you should have been more observant of your surroundings. But it is something you can easily fix. I figure that Vlad has been trying to lure you into a false sense of security and it worked, but now you won't let it happen again; you'll be more aware. And about us rescuing you? Of course we would. We're family, Danny and we take care of each other no matter what. There is no reason, absolutely none, to feel guilty. Not one of us blames you for what the GIW and Vlad did. We would do it again in a heat beat.

"But let's focus on the big stuff. You feel as though you are drowning under all these things but you need to take each thing one at a time and figure out where you stand, or how to solve it before moving on. One thing at a time. But I want you to remember that this feeling, it means that you're still here for the fight. You're still trying, still living and being yourself.

"Now, the first item to focus on is Vlad. We can't do anything about Vlad being quiet can we?"

"No." Danny responded. "And I'm not going to do anything unless he starts something first and he kind of did when…"

"No," Jazz cuts him off. "Yes, he called the GIW on you but no fighting was done, Danny. You only approach him if he attacks you and yes the previous situation could count but your time frame has now closed. You need to wait for the next opportunity."

Dany nodded in agreement. "You're right."

"Good. Now, let's focus on the Phantom and Sam mess. Do you already have a plan set up?"

"Yeah." Danny sat up and leaned against the back of the bench. "Ida says we should both do interviews with the news or a talk show host in Amity Park and do it with out the GIW knowing, that way they can't barge in half way through. But after that it's just the GIW since I'm sure we can both sway public opinion over towards my side again.

"The people might help with the situation, too. If the public is on your side it might make it harder for the GIW to take you. But I do suggest that when you all go out on patrol that Tucker and Sam start wearing masks of some sort, especially if the GIW will try and get both of you or anyone you're with."

"That's a really good idea." Danny smiled slightly at her and she was happy that some of the weight was coming off this shoulders.

"I have my moments." She chuckled, "Speaking of good ideas, what recent conclusions have you come to concerning your position as Ghost King? What else do you know about the new power?"

"I apparently can't find out anything on this ' _New Power'_ unless I become Ghost King because of the stupid Observants since they're harboring information. And if I don't become Ghost King then Vlad becomes King – even if he doesn't realize it. And knowing him he probably does already."

"You don't have to decide right now. But, what is holding you back?"

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "My humanity." He leaned back forward on his knees, eyes to ground. "That's what mine and Sam's dream was about last night. I was King and we were all playing on our dark sides – except not you, 'cause you weren't there – not Dani either because we still don't know if she's had her own or not. Anyway, Sam and Tucker had gunned down Valerie and me and Dani had Vlad. And we all killed them. Vlad had begged me to not do it. But, I told him that I had begged too many times from him and he had never been kind enough to not do what he was going to do to me, so I killed him.

"Sam says that one of the reasons that the dream won't become reality is because I know that it would be worse for Vlad to suffer alive than killing him. Which is true. And she also said that I just have to trust that I'll keep myself in check and you guys will help. And I do… but Jazz," he turned to look at her. "There's too many things. Too many possibilities. What if it all goes horribly wrong? That darkness still sits inside me – worse then everyone else's dark sides and what if the extra power influxes if I choose to be King changed that level of darkness? What if I can't help but succumb to it?"

"Vlad only focuses on himself and his own gains, you on the other hand focused on others. What other people need which is why I personally think that you'll be a great Ghost King and won't let that power drive you too crazy. But you don't need to make a decision now. Just think over what I've said. And once this problem is solved the other one will be too."

She waited for Danny to nod before moving on to her least focused topic. "The GIW are not going to leave any time soon. Amity Park is the #1 haunted City in the nation and I'm pretty sure the world too. But you have to watch your back 24/7. All 3 of you, but you especially, because there's no way they'd allow a 2nd break-in."

"The only way I can see maybe getting them to pack up and go would be to send the video from the interview you would have where you would tell the public exactly what happened with the blood blossoms. Then hopefully they'd be disbanded."

Danny shook his head, "Probably not, but worth a try, I guess. I mean some people are still on my side. Maybe like what you said before, that the public could run the GIW out."

"Only time will tell." She said trying to sound similar to Clockwork. It didn't work very well but it did get a smile out of Danny.

"Thanks." He looked over at her and grabbed her hand in his own where it rested on her leg. "And I'm sorry."

"You don't need to be sorry, Danny. I'll always be here." She decided to wait a few seconds and pops in her final talking point. "Selfishness is perfectly normal in this situation, you know. You're only human."

Danny rolled his eyes and gave her a side glare, "Okay, yes it's true, you're half dead." She admitted, putting her free hand up in defense. "But you're also _half alive_ , therefore still at least half human. But I have to ask… do you _really_ want to go back before you got your powers?" She's slightly worried, but she thinks she knows what he's going to tell her.

He ran a hand through his hair, before shaking his head. "No. No, I don't.

"Because even with all of this shit, I've done some real good out there. All those lives I've saved? IF I wasn't how I am now, do you know how many people would be dead? And anyway me and you might have actually ended up living with Vlad because he keeps trying to kill Jack and I keep stopping him. Sure Maddie could have raised us alone but if Vlad was offering her help I'm fairly sure she wouldn't have held out very long. And if that wasn't bad enough, ghosts would be running around Amity more so than usual because we both know that Maddie is smart enough to have eventually figured out what was wrong with the Ghost Portal and fix it without killing herself. And the GIW and Maddie and Jack are nowhere near of getting close to the amount of ghosts I have to capture and put back in the Zone. We would all just be regular teens. Not that we would all know the difference, but still me and you wouldn't be having this conversation because we wouldn't have grown as close as we are now if I had never stepping into the Portal."

Jazz smiled at him and reached for his free hand again and held it in her own.

"Everything would be different." He continued, "And I really don't want it all to go away because I love my powers. I can't even imagine my life without them anymore. But then there are those times, like recently, where I just want like a week to just not have to worry about all of those things and not failing school, you know?"

Jazz nodded, "This is why you come down to visit me. Not to just enjoy my company but for you to all be yourselves and you don't have to worry for a couple of days about those hard things. It's good for you to get away from that stuff sometimes."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, letting the conversation sink in. Danny shifted and turned his body towards Jazz and opened his arms. She leaned in and they hugged one another tightly.

"Thank you." He whispered in her ear.

"No problem." She responded just as quietly.

Of course their silence didn't last long as Tucker came over loudly complaining that they 'needed to get Sam away from him and that he wasn't going anywhere alone with her for a very long time!'

Jazz and Danny laughed while Sam only rolled her eyes at Tucker but were all happy for the break in the serious atmosphere that was surrounding them.

"Was it really that bad, Tuck?" Danny asked and intertwined his fingers with Sam. Jazz noticed their eyes become slightly far away and knew that they must have been speaking to the other through their link, again.

"Yes! She kept trying to get me to sneak in so we could pet them." He grumbled and crossed his arms over his chest. Danny openly laughed and Jazz tossed Sam a 'come on' look.

"Really, Sam?" Jazz asked.

She only shrugged, "What? It was fun!" She smirked.

Before Tucker could begin arguing with Sam again, Jazz stepped in, "How about we finish the last of this area and then head on over to the Art Museum and after that the paddleboats?"

"Sounds like a plan." Danny agreed, ignoring the mock-glares Sam and Tucker were throwing each other.

The group finished walking around the Zoo stopping a couple times at some exhibits they had yet to see and made their way back to the door that they come from before making their way to the Art Museum. Once there they walked around the first gallery area on the first floor before Danny and Tucker decided to go off on their own.

"We'll catch up to you guys later."

"Yeah, exploring ourselves seems to be more our speed." Tucker threw in with Danny.

"Have fun. Don't get lost." Sam said as the boys turned around and made their way back towards the main room.

"We won't." Danny called lowly back, not wanting to disturb people, and then they were out of sight.

"Ten bucks that they go to the café because Tucker's hungry." Jazz said turning away from the painting she was admiring to look at Sam.

"Oh, no bet required that's easy money." She laughed and Jazz joined in.

She was so happy that her and Sam were friends now and could do things like be at an Art Museum without feeling awkward around each other. Sure those first few months of their friendship were rocky but they made it through and were quite close. Jazz knew that for Sam being close to her meant you had her loyalty without fault and she didn't hand that out lightly. It made Jazz feel pretty special to be considered one of those people in her life.

"Danny and I had a long talk while you and Tucker were in the snake house."

"Reptilian." Sam said and they moved onto the next frame. "But yeah, I know. Danny told me." She vaguely pointed to her head indicating their link. "And I was kind of wondering if I could talk to you about the nightmare from last night." Her voice was solid but Jazz detected the slight nervousness in her question.

"Of course."

Sam let out a slow breath before speaking and reiterated what happened in the dream to Jazz. "…And seeing them both lying there dead on the ground and it took me so long to get Danny to wake up. So I'm just so worried about Danny and all the stress that he's under."

Jazz waited a few seconds mulling over what Sam said as they stood in a new gallery moving from piece to piece. "Have you had dreams similar to this one from last night about yourself being in that form?"

Sam shook her head, "No, only once but usually if I dream of myself like that it's memories of when I was under Undergrowth's control. And I'm in my body and not watching myself from a far like last night."

"Have you ever killed Valerie in your nightmares?"

"Only a couple of times." Jazz looked over to see Sam have a bit of a sorrowful look on her face even though the actions were only done in her dreams. "But it was because she had killed Danny in my dream and I just couldn't let that go, so I would shoot her or stab her or use whatever was laying on the ground when I looked for it and do it."

"So, did the nightmare freak you out more with you killing Valerie or Danny killing Vlad?" Jazz asked and they moved onto another portrait in the room.

She sighed heavily again, "Danny. Because I'm just able to understand myself better with killing because I know that I won't do that and I can't be that ghost version again. But we don't know about Danny because of the Crown. He could become like Pariah Dark or Aletikize. Two predecessors who killed. It makes me a bit nervous that this could turn him towards the worst."

"I am kinda too." Jazz admitted. "I didn't say anything before because I wanted to reassure him that he would be okay, but I'm still nervous. But like I told Danny, we won't let it get that far. We won't let him be pulled in so deep to the darkness that he can't be helped."

"I know that you're right. But it doesn't make it any easier."

"You're right, it doesn't." Jazz amended. They continued to walk amongst the paintings in the hall quietly before moving on to another section of the Museum. Jazz knew when Sam was done talking and they wouldn't bring it up again until much later. She was done for now, but Jazz was happy that Sam had taken the time with her to discuss her feelings on the topic – since Sam wasn't one to do that often and on her own free will.

Once they were in a new gallery the heaviness of their conversation wore off and they started to truly enjoy the art that they were viewing; voicing their opinions on the piece before moving on to the next one. After some time the boys met back up with them and they continued to enjoy the rest of the museum.

Of course when they were finally done with the exhibits it was quite late considering they had spent most of the day at the Zoo and the Art Museum, so when they went to the Boathouse to see if they had time to ride the paddleboats they found out that they had missed the time cut-off and were unable to do so. They were all a bit disappointed at this fact but since they were so hungry they decided that if they woke up early enough tomorrow that they would come back.

"So I was thinking that we could go to Fitz's for dinner." Danny said once they were back in the car and making their way towards Jazz's dorm again.

"I'm up for it."

"Jazz, do they have options for me?" Sam asked.

"Yes, they have a vegan menu, though it's pretty small."

"That's okay, was just making sure."

After everyone was in agreement of spending Danny's birthday dinner at Fitz's Jazz called ahead to make a reservation for 6:30 p.m., which was the best time they could get without waiting till 9 o'clock. When they made it back to the dorm they had enough time to freshen up slightly and change into a different pair of clothes before heading back out to the Delmar Loop where Fitz's was located.

It was extremely crowded when they arrived, but since they had called in a reservation they were seated right away.

When they had been seated for a few minutes their waitress came by, "Hi guys, I'm Casey and I'll be your server for tonight. Can I get you anything to drink?" They each ordered a Fitz's Root Beer except for Sam who ordered water. "Alright, I'll be back with those." She left with a smile.

The group was quite fascinated with the building they were in. There was a bar on one side of the restaurant and a staircase leading up to what they determined to be a party area with games and another bar. On the back wall stood a wall of windows that looked into the packing area of the Fitz's Root Beer. They could all see that there were three people working in the facility at the moment as a conveyer belt brought the bottles to each machine where a cap and lab was placed on the bottle before the people packaged the bottles.

The waitress came back with their Root Beers in frozen mugs and the water for Sam. They then each placed their orders for appetizers and dinners before the waitress left again.

Danny relaxed in his chair and placed an arm along the back of Sam's chair. "So I just wanted to say, thank you, Jazz for letting us come down here."

"You're always welcome, Danny. You all are."

"I know, but still. Today was really fun and it was nice to just get out and not have to worry about… about anything."

"Yeah, it was really nice today. I felt more relaxed today than I have in a long, long time." Sam chimed in.

"Good." Jazz smiled, "That's how I hoped that this weekend would go, and I'm so happy that it's gone so well."

"Us, too." Tucker answered for them all. "Hey, remember when we were like 7 years old and you were 9 and Danny said that he was going to stole away in your luggage when you went away to college?"

Jazz and Sam chuckled as Danny's ears burned red, "Oh yeah!" Jazz said, "It was so cute! And I kept telling him that if he did then he would have to bring his own stuff to keep him busy and he would have to sleep under my bed so no one would see him and send him back home."

"Hey, I just wanted to make sure you weren't lonely." Danny defended himself, though a smile was on his face.

The others chuckled and Sam said, "I'm sure you would have done a very good job of defending Jazz when you were 7." She patted his knee.

Tucker openly laughed, getting looks from people at the other tables, "You were such a twig when we were younger."

Danny snorted, "Like you were any better."

"I could clearly take both of you." Sam added making Jazz laugh harder.

"Not like you still couldn't." Both girls high-fived.

"Yeah, yeah." Danny and Tucker rolled their eyes. "Rub it, in." Tucker finished.

The conversations held up in a light and easy tone throughout the rest of dinner. The group couldn't remember the last time that they had felt this relaxed at a meal, never-the-less through the whole day. It felt so nice, to act as though they were only normal teens for once. That they didn't fight ghosts every day and didn't have the weight on their shoulders – but it was something that they could never forget.

When dinner was over they made their to a dessert bar down the street where they each ordered a cupcake – Sam's was a vegan version – to celebrate and sing 'Happy Birthday' to Danny. Hilariously, Sam grabbed Danny's cupcake before he could and smooshed it against his face, smearing the vanilla icing his had been topped with. The others laughed as Danny retaliated by taking Sam's own cupcake and doing the same to her as she did to him.

"Danny!" Sam cried out.

"Sam!" Danny mimicked as Jazz and Tucker laughed from the opposite side of the table.

She rolled her eyes and wiped the icing off her mouth, "At least it tastes good."

After finishing their dessert the group made their way back to the dorm room and settled in for bed, tired from the long day out in the sun and spending most of the day on their feet.

* * *

 **October 5th, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **Botanical Gardens**

 **10:35 a.m.**

' _This is most definitely on my top five most favorite places to go.'_ Sam said as her and Danny walked together through the Botanical Gardens. Danny and Sam had gone off on their own once they had arrived, or rather Jazz pulled Tucker away to give them both privacy without Sam and Danny having to ask.

' _Good to know. I'll file that information away for later.'_ Danny said, squeezing her hand that was intertwined with his own. They were currently making their way through the Daylily Garden. It was extremely beautiful and Sam wanted to keep taking pictures of everything but she stopped and made sure to just appreciate the beauty of the gardens.

' _Well, it's not like we live here or anything.'_ She shrugged her shoulders.

' _No.'_ Danny said, _'But it's something you like. Something that makes you happy.'_

Sam smiled and an extra burst of happiness flowed through them both. _'Look at you being all sappy.'_ Sam used her shoulder to knock lightly against his own – well his upper arm.

Danny chuckled, _'Eh, I try.'_

They walked in comfortable silence throughout the rest of the Daylily Garden before making their way on down the rest of the path to see what else was in store for them at the Botanical Gardens. Trees and flowers rested among the edges of the path making even the route between Gardens a beautiful one.

' _I kind of don't want to leave, now.'_ Sam finally spoke up.

Danny sighed mentally and physically, _'Me either. But at least we've gotten to have this break for a couple of days.'_

' _That's true. Still doesn't mean I don't want to go back. It's very peaceful here.'_ They could actually hear the rush of cars on the other side of the huge wall that housed the Gardens, but they were still in the city so it wasn't like it wasn't expected.

' _We'll definitely have to come back here.'_ Danny eased.

' _I think in spring I'll get some of the flowers they have here and grow some out in my own garden next to my other flowers. For a change of scenery.'_

' _The arrangement you had this past year was really good – uh pretty.'_

' _I don't know, it was a good one – you're right – but I think if I add some daylilies in or other things I'm sure we'll find in this place, that it'll be an interesting set up.'_

' _You do have a knack for designing. Speaking of did you tell Jazz about your Art Show in Springfield on the 11_ _th_ _?'_

' _Yep.'_ Sam actually smiled a bright, cheery smile _. 'And she's all gung-ho for it. But she said that she has to drive back after it's over since she's got something she has to do on Sunday.'_

' _Good. At least she's able to make it. I was kind of worried that she wouldn't be able to.'_

' _I just hope my parents are the ones that don't make it. And I do kind of hate saying that. But they're stressing me out so much and I know that they aren't quite happy about the art thing because they think that's all I'm going to do with my life – which they're wrong about. But if they don't come then I hopefully won't have to worry about them inviting Charlie to come.'_

Danny could feel the anger start to make its way slowly back into Sam and knew he had to get her off that path. _'How about we not focus on them right now and just on the moment we're in. Just the two of us.'_

She sighed and nodded her head, _'You're right, you're right.' She paused, 'I really like the way that sounds._ Just the two of us. _'_

Danny smiled and looked down at her as they walked, keeping a look out on the mostly empty pathway with the corner of his eye. _'I can't believe we're actually at this point. It's still a bit weird to me.'_

She smiled up at him, locking eyes with his blue ones, their walk slowed down incredibly. _'It's still kind of weird to me too. But it feels right.'_

' _That I'll definitely agree with.'_ Danny leaned down and kissed Sam soundly on the lips. They stood together for more than a few seconds as they kissed slowly on the pathway. But they eventually pulled away and kept on their way down the path.

' _I'm glad that you and Jazz finally talked about everything.'_

' _I think it helped that you were pushing me along up here.'_

' _It was either that, or me and Tucker sit out there with you and stare you down. At least that way Jazz was able to pull it out of you privately.'_ Danny threw her a look and she rolled her eyes. _'Okay, okay. Not private, but_ you _gave me permission to reiterate the convo to Tucker.'_

' _Fair enough.'_ Danny shrugged, though the smile didn't leave his face.

' _You seem to be more at ease.'_

' _I do.'_ He shrugged again. _'I mean I'm not cured or anything. Not like any of us will be. But it felt nice to get that stuff off of my shoulders.'_

' _I told you talking to Jazz would help.'_

Danny snorted, _'And your own talk with Jazz?'_

' _It's kind of put me at a stand point on the subjects. But it's better knowing it's not just me.'_

' _Ten bucks she's giving Tucker the same talk she's given both of us.'_ Danny could tell that Sam didn't want to go down the path of their conversations at this time. Like he had said before they just needed to enjoy their time together, which was why he decided on a slight subject changed.

' _Twenty that he's balled his eyes out.'_ Sam smirked.

' _What! No fair yours is higher than mine.'_

' _Twenty bucks. Take it or leave it.'_

' _Fine. But I'm matching my original ten to your twenty.'_

' _Fine by me. I'm going to win anyway.'_

' _In your dreams.'_

' _Yep. And yours too.'_

' _Sam!'_

She laughed aloud and clutched her stomach. "Alright then. If you think that's unfair how about we make that whoever makes it out of that maze wins?"

"Wait, what maze?" Danny looked around the compound confused. All he saw were the same hedges that had been along the path for a couple of yards.

Sam rolled her eyes, "There's a sign right there." She pointed ahead of them and Danny saw a plaque with the word 'MAZE' written in gold lettering.

"Oh." Well, if he hadn't been so focused on her, he would have seen it. "Alright, you're on." He winked at her and took off towards the opening he saw.

' _And no powers!'_

' _You'll have to catch me first.'_

' _Danny!'_ But she was laughing as she yelled at and he could hear the gravel under her feet as she entered the tall maze. He never thought that in a million years that they would be at this point where they are now. But even as everything was bad back home, this little infinity of theirs truly could hold him over for the rest of his days.

 **October 5th, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **Botanical Gardens**

 **11:00 a.m.**

* * *

 **Hey guys! So I hoped you liked the chapter and I can't wait to hear from you and see what you thought! The next chap. will probably be more likely to be update on Saturday, but don't hold me to it. Again, so sorry for it being late. But i'd rather have it done then give you guys a short chapter.**

 ****ANSWERS TO REVIEWs:**

 **The Talent:** So I just wanted to let you know that I don't plan on having Sam have ghost powers. I know it's something that really isn't done, but I've never quite believed that idea or particularly liked it. I'm sorry if this makes me lose you as a reader, but I just wanted to forewarn you that Sam is just going to be her regular badass self next to Danny. I hoped you liked this chapter though! :)

 **CaptainDorito:** That's so awesome! Thank you for recommending me! That makes me to happy!

 **SamXDanny:** Sorry I didn't update on your favorite day :( You'll just have to wait and see about the dream and see if it actually happens *cue evil laughter* lol

 **Guest Georgia:** Wow! Thank you so much for your reviews! Every one of them made my heart soar to see that you reviewed on all of those chapters :) Thank you so much!

 **ShadowDragon357:** Okay, so about the dorm thing. It's actually a thing down at Wash U. where you're actually living in a suite type situation. You have four rooms (you have your own room) and you all share one bathroom. Then it's divided into sections and those sections share a common area. I pulled Jazz's dorm room from the South Forty Residential College. (mainly because that's where my one friend lived and I really liked it.) you can look it up on WashU's undergraduate residential page if you would like, they provide floor plans so you can see it in real time too.

Yeah I like the idea of the three of them being all dark like that. I've always thought that was so cool. But we'll see if I work it in or not cuz this story is so hella long ;) Also, I'll message you in the next day or so, I'm kinda on spring break and I'm just kind of separating myself from everything for a couple of days.

 **Capitolblonde** :Oh, yeah! I'm so in agreement with you about the whole Sam being a halfa type thing or her with ghost powers. And he's not ghost king yet! He's still trying to figure it all out! :)


	28. Davis Pallsum

You guys! I'm again so sorry for the late update. But at least it was only a week in a half *laughing turning into crying*. Again, so sorry but I'll explain why I got held up with this chapter after you read! :)

Thank you so much to all of my reviewers! I love you guys so much! **ShadowDragon357, Blue11msu, The Talent, SamXDanny, CaptainDorito, Littleladybug2, Phantom Fire1, Guest Georgia, Capitolblonde, Mayra58**

 ****Answers to reviewers at bottom:**

 **ShadowDragon357, The Talent, Littleladybug2, Phantom Fire1, Guest Georgia, Mayra58**

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or the song 'Impossible Year' by Panic! At the Disco.

* * *

 **There's never air to breathe**

 **There's never in-betweens**

 **These nightmares always hang on past the dream**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Davis Pallsum**

 **Word count: 4,564**

 **4/6/16**

* * *

 **October 6th, 2014**

 **Monday**

 **Casper High**

 **1:10 p.m.**

When Monday rolled around the trio were sad yet happy to be back in Amity Park. Sad that they were back to real life and having to deal with everybody, but happy because they were finally home and sleeping in their own beds and being back in their hometown - even if the people weren't quite making them happy.

They had gotten back the night before fairly late, around 11 o'clock because they had eaten one last dinner with Jazz before heading out on the later train. Sam's car had been sitting in the parking lot when they had arrived and she had dropped them both off before going back to her own home. Her and Danny found it odd that they had only slept next to each other for a couple of days and they were already missing each other's physical presence when they went to bed that night. But they stayed in their own beds, sharing 'dream like' images before succumbing to sleep.

The group also decided to wait to go to the Internet café until Monday night to give their parents ease of mind and since they were pretty tired from the day out in the sun and traveling; that it would be best to go out Monday instead of that night.

When they had arrived at Casper High that morning they were surprised that practically everyone was back to ignoring them – even Sam. Sure there was still Paulina and Dash to count on, but everyone else seemed to have gone back to ignoring them all. They were incredibly thankful for that fact and went about their day as normally as they would any other Monday.

However, as they sat in Ghost 101 now, they realized the end of their day wasn't going to be so normal. See, they had forgotten that this week in Ghost 101 they were starting their dissection/ fighting unit.

They had walked up to their normal classroom, but on the door was a sign that redirected them to room 107 – which they knew to be a science room. Upon arrival to their designated room they were confronted with lab tables filled with silver dissection trays, boxes with latex gloves, and tools laid out beside the trays.

The trio made their way around the a lab table in the back and read what Agent Z had written on the white board in front of them in red marker.

 **Frog Dissection** **TODAY!**

 **\- No more than 3 to a table**

 **\- If you do not have closed toed shoes come see me**

 **\- Hair up and away from face**

 **\- Grab a pair of safety goggles from the back white closet**

"I thought we were dissecting ghosts? Not frogs." Sam said as they went and grabbed safety goggles from the white cabinet in the back of the room.

"Me too." Danny said. Though he was slightly happy that he didn't have to worry about dissecting ghosts at the moment. He could handle a frog. He didn't know if he could handle a ghost. Especially ones he's already fought. It was different when he devoured level ones and twos for sustenance after a really hard fight but it was completely different to open one up and dissect them.

"I am not good with this." Tucker protested looking pale as he looked at the scalpel, tweezers, scissors and dissection pan. "There is no way I can do this."

"Did you parents sign the form?" Danny asked.

"Yes!" Tucker cried as more and more students entered the room. "They said that I just have to get over it and that it's not that big of a deal. Hello! We're opening up an animal!" He turned and pointed at the tray in front of them. "It's gross! No way. I'll pass out if I have to."

"What and go to the nurses office?" Sam smirked.

"Shut it, Sam. The nurse's office would be better than dealing with those things."

She rolls her eyes, "Like you haven't had to," her voice lowered to a whisper, "stitch up Danny before."

"That's different! That was putting skin back together, not splitting it open."

"Okay, then let's go see if Agent Z will let you off on that part." Danny interrupted before they could continue.

"Yeah." Tucker held out the word. "Yeah." He nodded his head. "Okay, okay I'll go ask." He got up front he table and made his way up to the front where Agent Z was organizing papers in the desk, and the final bell rang.

"Agent Z?" Tucker called attention once he reached the front.

"Yes, Mr. Foley?"

"I'm not sure I can do this whole dissecting thing. You know with a real frog."

Agent Z stopped looking through the papers on his desk and stared up at Tucker. "You sure?"

"Yes." He nodded quickly.

The Agent sighed. "Alright. You'll be the one to fill out the lab sheet then in your group while Mr. Fenton and Miss Manson do the actual dissection. Can you handle that?"

"I think so."

"Good. And if you feel like you have to throw up, just go ahead and leave; you don't have to ask permission."

Tucker sighed happily, "Thank you." Agent Z nodded in accordance and Tucker made his stay back to the table.

"What did he say?" Danny asked as Tucker sat back down.

"Said, you guys are going to do the dissection yourselves and I just write everything down."

"Not that this should be being done, anyway." Sam said sourly. "They're killing the frogs. The wild frog population gets lower and lower every year and these cases do not help." Danny and Tucker only nodded along. They were on the same page as Sam after doing some research on the topic but they usually just let her talk about it, because it was easier.

"Alright class, today's the day for dissection. Now that we've gotten the few of you who were not ready for this procedure fixed up, it's time to start." Agent Z began the class making everyone fall silent.

"Now, today we are dissecting frogs because this will be the practice run for when we dissect level 3 ghosts on Wednesday. The procedure is somewhat different but our focus is on learning how to use the tools and to identify different parts on the inside. Here is our diagram of how to cut open our frog." He moved back and pointed towards the power point he had pulled up on the projector.

"One person will take down the information while the one or two of you will be the ones to dissect the frog. I will not be dissecting your frog for you. And if you ask me to do the entire dissection you will lose an automatic 40% from this assignment. However, if need _help_ , please feel free to ask. You may begin once I give you your frog."

Agent Z picked up the box on the table top and started handing frogs out. When the frog was placed down on the trio's table Sam's face instantly shifted into a sad horror.

"This really needs to stop."

"We know, Sam." Tucker said.

Danny started pulling on a pair of gloves. "But you already took it to the Board of Directors. If you went up to them again I think they'd give you the same verdict as before."

Sam eyed the poor dead frog in front of her. "Maybe. Maybe, I just need to change my tactic."

"Whatever you think is best. Now, let's see what we have to do with this thing."

* * *

 **October 6th, 2014**

 **Monday**

 **Manson Mansion**

 **3:50 p.m.**

"Hey, grandma!" Sam called as she passed Ida's room on the way to her own room, ready to drop her back-pack and start on a new approach to the School Board with her plan to 'Save the Frogs'.

"Hello, bubala. How was your day?"

"Good." Sam stopped and turned around to go back to Ida's room where she was putting away laundry. "Need any help?" She put her bag down next to the door and started hanging up her grandma's things with the hangers on the bed.

"Thank you. So you had a _good_ day?" Ida asked tentatively.

"Yeah, at least until Ghost 101. We had to dissect frogs."

Ida looked up from folding a pair of pants. "Oh dear, was Tucker okay?"

Sam chuckled, "Yeah, he just wrote out the report and didn't look at it the whole time."

"Oh, good." She put a hand to her chest relieved, then started folding again. "Sometimes I worry about that boy."

"Sam smirked, "We all do at times." They stayed quiet for nearly a minute and the only sound being the rustle of clothes and clank of hangers until Ida spoke up.

"Have you and Danny decided what you're going to do? Whether you'll do the interviews or not?"

Sam instantly flashed back to the conversation that she, Danny and Tucker had had on the train ride back to Amity Park. They had discussed every option they could do and nothing was on par with the effectiveness that the interviews could produce. They then started planning from who would do it down to a word for word enactment and statement from each of them.

"Yeah, we all agreed that we would give it a try. But Danny's going to go first and see what happens with that. Then if the News calls and says they want an interview with me, I'll do it. But if not and nothing gets cleared up I'll go on in a couple of days or something."

"We'll need to do this as soon as possible." Ida handed her a few more clothes to hang up before taking a seat on her bed and relaxing against the pillows. "The GIW contacted your parents this morning and informed them that they would be ready to perform the extraction on Thursday. They wanted to do it Wednesday apparently but it was a no-go because they go the paper work finished later than they wanted."

Sam groaned and leaned heavily on the bed. She shut her eyes, forgetting about the clothes. "Thursday. Alright, at least we have a deadline." She let out her breath slowly before standing straight one more and resumed pulling the last few clothes of her grandmothers onto their hangers.

"I guess it's good that we're going to go out tonight and check out that Internet Café downtown and see if we can figure out who the creep was that did all this. Then when it comes down to tomorrow, Danny will conduct his interview with that information – hopefully. And then we'll have to just wait and see." Sam finished with the clothes. She picked them all up and brought them into Ida's closet where she proceeded to hang them up.

"So far this is the best plan of action. And don't worry I'll make sure to cover for you in case your father or mother decide to check on you. Which they might, considering you're still grounded." Ida narrowed her eyes at the closer where Sam was.

Sam peeked her head out knowing that her grandma had been giving her a look. She chuckled when she found she was right and disappeared back into the closet. "And who do you think I go this rebellious side from, huh?"

Ida huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Certainly not your _mother_."

That comment only had Sam laughing harder than she was prepared for.

* * *

 **October 7th, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **Internet Café: Webbed Coffee**

 **12:20 a.m.**

It was late when Danny picked Sam and Tucker up. He had actually been bust most of the afternoon and the night catching the ghosts from the weekend and the day – though he was happy that it hadn't taken very long. He was even more pleased to have one day where he didn't run into Valerie or the GIW. But not running into Valerie was typical on a Monday; the GIW however, was a different story. He wondered if they were waiting to go after him until Thursday when they would try to get Sam and extract his 'essence' from her. Sam had informed him earlier through the link about what Ida had told her and he proceeded to tell Tucker.

She actually had told him while he was telling Maddie and Jack about his weekend with Jazz and it threw a monkey wrench on some of the better parts he was telling them. He could tell that they had taken notice, but he hoped that they just chalked it up to him being annoyed he was back and still grounded then try and find a reason themselves in their own way.

But Danny didn't focus too much on that aspect and focused on the task at hand. Danny flew them inside of the Webbed Coffee; once inside Tucker disabled the security system while he and Sam worked on finding the correct computer that Tucker had traced everything to.

"Alright. Now that that's done, let me check out this security footage and see if we can figure out who was sitting at that computer." Tucker said as he took a seat in the back office where he began pulling up the videos from last week Tuesday.

"God, I hope we find whoever did this." Sam said as she sat on Danny's lap since there were only two chairs in the office and she didn't feel like grabbing one from out in the Café area.

They watched on four screens – four different angles they could get. They fast forwarded and rewound and paused and played second by second for nearly two hours. Two hours of either not recognizing anyone who took the seat or seeing it empty. Two hours and they had only made it 5 hours into one day. And there were another 4 to go.

"If we don't find out who did this after all of this, I'm going to be royally pissed." Danny grumbled, running a hand down his face. He'd gotten a couple breaks throughout the night to take care of a few ghosts so thankfully he hadn't spent the _entire time_ watching the screens, but that had only been twenty minutes total of ghost fighting.

"We're going to find _something_. There has to be _something_. Even if it's these people we don't know. We can find their names from the sheet that the owner has to keep track and go from there." Tucker said in reassurance.

"Um, so this is dumb and should have realized this sooner." Sam said bringing them both to her attention. "Why're we not looking at the video from around the time that the email was sent?"

Danny and Tucker looked at her with wide eyes. "You have gotta be _kidding_ _me_!" Tucker groaned and began fast forwarding to the 6:00 p.m. time slot.

"I can't believe we forgot about that." Danny looked on in disbelief at the video on the computer. "We have got to be more tired than we thought."

"I hope not, cause whoever did this is sitting right there." Sam pointed when Tucker had stopped fast forwarding and played the back and white surveillance normally.

Someone was sitting at the designated computer. From what they could figure, the person was a man wearing jeans and sweatshirt. But they were shocked that they couldn't get a good look at the guys face from the angles they were in, because the guys' hood was up. They tried the other angles of the videos but the four they were watching were the best ones.

"Back up a bit. See if we can see him coming in. I wanna know who's sitting there."

Tucker obliged Sam's request. They went back nearly ten minutes where they were able to watch the man enter the Internet Café and making his way to the designated computer. But as they watched each camera angle for any sign they were unable to get any sort of good look at the guys face. No matter where he walked and what he did, the trio had stayed up on him but they could only just make out a nose.

"This has to be our guy." Sam said, "What do the records say, who was it?"

Danny pulled the log over to him and found the correct time slot. "I don't recognize the name. Davis Pallsum."

"I don't either."

"Never heard of him."

"Maybe we'll know him if we see his face." Danny sighed and leaned back in his chair, eyes locked on the video footage.

"If we could only see his face." Tucker groaned. He made the video move a bit faster; they all watched but the guys' head didn't move. They spent another 30 minutes waiting on the sped up video for him to move again.

"Alright." Tucker slowed it down to normal speed, "This is the last chance."

They waited expectantly as Davis got up from his chair after logging off the computer. He kept his head down and hood up as he made his way back to the log book by the front door. He sighed out and continued on to the door. The trio felt their hope drop since they still couldn't see his face once he reached the door.

But then the man did the oddest thing. He stopped at the door, one hand on the handle, turned to look straight at the camera in the corner and smirked, before ducking his head and exiting from the Café.

"No, shit." Tucker gasped. The trio stared at the black and white video footage, shock clear on their faces. "No, shit!" Tucker's voice dropped in anger. He rewound the video and paused on the frame where Davis Pallsum had smirked at the camera. Only, they knew that this guy wasn't, Davis Pallsum.

"That's it." Danny growled. "I have sat idle long enough. I'm confronting Vlad." He got up from his chair and started pacing the small office space, eyes glued to the screen. Vlad – as Masters – was smirking up at him and the only thing he wanted to do was punch his lights out, then add a couple more for good measure. He was so angry he couldn't even enjoy how funny Vlad looked in regular clothes.

"Why would Vlad do this? What reason did he have for this? Wouldn't it be at least, to him, another link for people to find out your secret? And if people find out your secret, then you'll tell everyone about him." Sam groaned, "This just doesn't make sense! Why would he do this? This isn't his normal M-O."

"You mean, making Danny look bad isn't his normal M-O?" Tucker asked sarcastically as he made a copy of the video for himself.

"It's not like he does it like _this_." Danny threw his hands up in frustration. Sam and Tucker watched him carefully unsure if Danny would start spewing ice everywhere or not.

Danny continued to pace, cursing Vlad's name between incomprehensible words. Sam sat in her chair steaming in anger and Tucker finished up deleting evidence that they were ever there from the security cameras. Once Tucker had turned the security system back on and Danny had cooled down slightly they flew up to the roof of the building.

"Hello, Daniel."

"Vlad." Danny growled, spotting Plasmius at the other end of the roof. He set Sam and Tucker down on the roof top not taking his eyes off Vlad. "What the hell do you want? What game are you trying to play?" Danny let go of Sam and Tucker's waists and moved his arms into a fighting ready position with an ecto-ball coming to life in his right hand. "What do you get out of all this?"

"Now Daniel, really." Vlad kept his composure with his arms crossed and moved a couple of steps towards them. "Must you always be so high strung? No need for that. I've come to have a small chat." He took a few more steps towards the group, but Danny fired the ecto-ball at the ground in front of Vlad's feet.

"Like I believe what you say." Danny rolled his eyes. "Now answer my questions."

Vlad rolled his eyes, but stayed where he stood. "If I told you that, then I might as well knock over my King now."

Danny's anger was growing rapidly, "This isn't a chess match!" He shouted lighting up both hands.

Vlad tsked and shook his head, "Life is always a chess match, Daniel. The sooner you understand that, the better you could do in this world. That is one of the many reasons you've yet to beat me." Vlad glanced at Tucker then Sam, taking notice of the necklace still tied around her neck. "Ah, I see that this ordeal has not created a rift between the two of you."

"An ordeal that you started!" Danny threw the two beams at him. Vlad simply dodged them both.

"We really need to work on your temper, Little Badger. But if you insist." He smiled at Danny and threw an ecto-beam his way.

Sam and Tucker dodged to the side while Danny blocked the blast with one of his shields.

"I see you've kept up some of your work in my absence." He flew towards Danny sending another blast his way.

Danny growled and turned intangible, "You are not my mentor." He aimed kick at Vlad who blocked at the same time as throwing a punch at Danny. He barely blocked in time and fired up another ecto-ball.

"If only you'd see that, that isn't as true as you'd like it to be." He smirked at Danny and sent a ray towards his head. Danny used his eye beams to freeze the blast, catching it and threw it back at Vlad who turned intangible to miss being speared.

"How could you do that? What purpose than your own amusement did doing all this serve?" He dodged blast after blast from Plasmius but he got hit on the side of the arm as he wasn't fast enough to dodge one of them. Danny fired back more forcefully using his mix of ice and ectoplasm and was happy to see he got a hit to Vlad's chest.

"You've gotten quicker. But alas," he teleported away. Danny turned around expecting him to turn up behind him but he went there. He turned back around and was met with an upper cut and a kick to the stomach, sending him to the roof they were fighting over. "That information will be revealed in due time. How are the GIW handling the situation."

Danny groaned and got up from the ground as Sam and Tucker started open firing with their weapons on Vlad. He watched as Vlad sent a solid wall of ectoplasm at them, sending them crashing to the ground.

"Leave them alone!" He growled shooting back up and hurling a few ecto-beams at Vlad hitting him at least once.

"So it's not going well then." Vlad caught one of his ecto-beams and redirected it back to him but he dodged out of the way quick enough and aimed his icy eye beams at Vlad.

"How do you think it's going." He flew towards Vlad aiming a punch at his stomach. "And _you_!" His attack was blocked like he knew it would be and followed up with a kick to the hip that shocked Vlad. " _You_ called the GIW on me! Not only that but," he hit him again, " _you_ were the one that knocked me out _in the first place_!"

Vlad blocked Danny's kick by grabbing his foot. He pulled Danny towards him and delivered a punch to his face and stomach, knocking him back a few yards. "It was the best way to know what was really going on. What the GIW were actually doing behind closed doors." He dodged Danny's attack but Danny blocked all of his own and Danny could tell that Vlad was pleased that he was keeping up. This knowledge made him feel disgusting, like he needed to shower 10 times. "As mayor I've seen the facility but I knew that they wouldn't show me much else." He grunted the last word as Danny got in a good hit.

"It was worse than what you could imagine."

Vlad wiped the blood from his lips as they went back at it. "I know, Daniel. I bugged the place using you as the carrier. It was a necessary risk, dear boy."

"What!" The trio shouted angrily. Danny couldn't actually believe… actually never mind, he _could_ believe it. Danny decided to put his anger into trying to beat Vlad to a pulp.

"But I knew that you would be fine. That your little family would get you out." Vlad was able to get out between the hits Danny was giving him. "But I think it's best to be heading out. I've only scheduled a few minutes to deal with this. No worries," Vlad dodged an ice spear that Danny sent his way. "I'll check in later. Maybe send someone else to deal with your idiot father."

Danny aimed another kick but he was pushed back by the spinning vortex that Vlad was creating and soon vanished into, leaving them with an empty roof top.

"No! Come back and fight! You coward!" Danny practically screamed.

He could hear Sam shouting angrily below him about what Vlad had said but he only focused on trying to see if Vlad had actually teleported away closer than what he thought. But he didn't see him. Didn't see anyone for that matter. Then he remembered that it was 3 o'clock in the morning, of course no one would be out and about.

"I can't believe that it was Vlad that did this." Tucker exclaimed throwing his hands up in the air.

"I can't believe he actually admitted that he did all this." Sam paced the roof top as Danny landed back on it.

"All I care about is getting him to tell us why he did this." Danny grumbled.

"And that's most definitely not going to happen." Tucker sighed, running a hand over his face.

Danny growled and shot an ecto-ray at the slightly raised wall along the roof, "I'll take you guys home." Then afterwards he was going to their clearing to let out his frustrations because he really didn't want to hurt some innocent ghost.

 **October 7th, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **Roof-Top of the Webbed Coffee**

 **3:00 a.m.**

* * *

Alright! So as you can see Vlad has finally (FINALLY) shown up in this story even if it was just for a little bit. So I did my best trying to write Vlad. I know I'm not very good with his character yet, and I hope it'll come out better once I start infiltrating him into this story more. That's one of the reasons why this took so long. The last part of this chapter I kept having to rewrite over and over and over again because Vlad just didn't sound right or the fighting wasn't all there or Danny was just being an idiot and then one time I realized I completely left out Sam and Tucker so I had to go back and put them in. And this was the end result. I'm pretty okay with how their fight went and what not but I know some of you might not be, but if you would like to help me write Vlad and/or fight scenes better then let me know!

 **Expect the next chapter in one week after I posted this one! HINT:** the next chapter is going to be super-duper long and have pretty much from their Tuesday (so tomorrow) till like the following Tuesday. We're going to have this next chapter chalk full of things.

 ****Answers to reviews:**

 **ShadowDragon357:** Sam would totally scare Tucker with a reptile! LOL

 **The Talent:** Sam's my fav too! I find that I write her a lot better than everybody else and I can write better in her voice too. Yeah, I liked having them have a time out but it is quite strange having them in a different environment where they don't have to worry.

 **Littleladybug2:** I'm so happy to have you here and I hope you enjoyed this chapter like the rest of the story :) you came in at a good pint because the craziness is really going to pick up again :)

 **Phantom Fire1:** You'll have to wait and see. But if I do put it in it won't be in this first book.


	29. Interviews and Rights

I'm so sorry that this was late guys! Read on and all the notes are at the bottom.

Also Ghost Language translations are at the end of the chapter if you want to read them.

By the way, yes, I know it's a long chapter but I hope it makes up for the weeks that I missed!

 **ShadowDragon357:** I totally put a special little section in this chapter just for you and our conversations. Let me know when you find it! Hahahaha ;)

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Danny Phantom or the song "Just one yesterday" by Fall Out Boy

* * *

 **See how dirty I can get them**

 **Pulling out their fragile teeth**

 **And clip their tiny wings**

 **Anything you say can and will be held against you**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Interviews and Rights**

 **Word count: 20,695**

 **6/4/16**

* * *

 **October 7th, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **Channel 4 News Station**

 **4:30 p.m.**

"Hello, I am Lance Thunder with Channel 4 News. Here with us today is a special guest. Hello, Phantom."

"Hi, Lance." Danny smiled and waved towards the camera with the lit red light above it.

"Phantom has graciously come in to speak with me about the recent event going on and is wanting to set things straight, correct?"

"Yes, that is what my plan is." Danny folded his hands together on the table that separated him and Lance Thunder, keeping a small smile etched on his face despite how tired he felt. "I want people to know the facts and not be misled by anymore rumors."

Lance Thunder turned away from the cameras to look at him, "So, this would mean that you have never met Sam Manson before?"

Danny shook his head, "I have actually met her before but not exactly. I've only saved her from ghost attacks. Otherwise, I really don't know her."

"Which would mean that this picture," The photo of Phantom with his arm around Sam's waist appeared to his left on the screen behind the large table, "is a fake picture."

Danny shook his head, glancing quickly at the photo before looking back at Lance Thunder. "No. No, it is a real picture. But people have taken it out of context. Truthfully, I had no idea this photo had even been taken. But I had just saved her from Technus."

"The Techy ghost, correct?"

Danny nodded, "Yeah, that's him. He had been about to zap her with something but I picked her up and moved her out of the way before that could happen."

"And you saved her not because you are infatuated with her?"

"No! Most definitely not. I'm sure she's a great girl and all but I don't have any interest in human girls like that. Now that I'm a ghost I like ghost girls, not human girls."

"So the tabloids and rumors are wrong that you are overshadowing her to make her your girlfriend."

"Yes, those statements are false. I do not overshadow _anyone_ for that matter. I _always_ do my best to respect the people of this town and overshadowing them is an immense invasion of privacy. Just because I'm dead doesn't mean I don't remember what it was like to _be human._ "

"That's an incredibly nice thing to do since I've seen bad ghosts do that to people."

"Yes, that does happen." Danny nodded solemnly, "But when I find them I can always get the ghost out without hurting the person."

"Which Amity Park thanks you for, now back to our main topic. You mentioned earlier that you _have_ met Sam Manson before. Where and when were these instances?"

"When this past event happened that was the first time I'd actually met her when she was alone. But before this it would have been only twice. The first time was when I first started protecting Amity Park, when the Lunch Lady first arrived."

"The ghost Lady who's obsessed with meat, correct?"

"Yeah. Anyway, Sam had angered the Lunch Lady because she had gotten the school to change the menu over to a vegan style. When I came to the school to get rid of the Lunch Lady her and her two friends, Danny and Tucker, offered to help me, which they did. I thanked all three of them and that was the last time I spoke to them until about a year ago? Can't really remember the date. Anyway, it was in the park again and it was just a routine check around the park when I saw Sam, Tucker and Danny walking along one of the paths. I guess they had seen me flying overhead because they waved at me and shouted for me to come down to talk to them. Just _because_."

"Of course, that's understandable. Who are Danny and Tucker?"

"Danny Fenton and Tucker Foley."

"A _Fenton_ speaking with and _helping_ a ghost. How odd…"

"Yeah, I thought so too. But he told me when I first met their little group that he didn't believe all ghosts were evil. And I believed what he told me."

"You seem to have connections with this group of teenagers then. What makes them so different to other Amity Park residents?"

"It's not just _them_ I've grown attached to. It's so many people in this city."

"Like who?"

"Well, there's Ricky Stevens, from Casper Elementary School and I saved him from a ghost attack. Alice Weather, she's this elderly woman that when I see her out, I help her with her grocery's. Trevor Smith, saved him from Skulker. Mary and Kalli Meyer, saved them from a ghost attack. Jerry Johnson, Katie Harris, Nicolle Hayes, Taylor Hamilton, Taylor Washington, Taylor Ross, Mike Peterson, David Bennett, Evan Scott, Mallory Scott, Dash Baxter, Paulina Sanchez, Mallory King, Rick Wilson, Ashley Wilson, Allie White, Austin miller, Zach Smith, Ja…"

"You've helped so many people and you remember everyone's names?"

"I have a pretty good memory. But those people are barely a handful of the people I help here and continue to help. Just because I saved Sam Manson one night and someone snapped a picture does not mean anything more than the fact that I had only _saved_ her."

A picture of the GIW pulled up on the back screen. "The Guys in White are saying that they plan to extract you from her. If you are not overshadowing her, what will happen to her if they do this?"

Danny shrugged and shook his head, "Nothing. I'm not overshadowing her and I don't have any way to get inside her head – since I know that some people believe I do – but I don't. She will be fine, but the GIW are becoming a nuisance here and need to respect the people like I have done."

"Most towns people are in agreement with this. Ever since it has been known that they had captured you back in early September. They say that they released you a few days later, is that true?"

"No." Danny heard the harsh tone in his voice but didn't mind because it was such a big statement to make.

"How did you get out?"

"I have a few ghost friends in the Ghost Zone and three of them created a rescue effort."

"We saw you that night when the GIW told us they had released you. You looked relatively fine, what things did the GIW do to you?"

Danny was happy that they had prepared for these other questions. Tucker had been adamant on the fact that Lance Thunder was more than likely going to try and figure out what happened and Sam agreed that it was best to be prepared than not to be prepared. "I was feeling much better, but my ghostly friends rescued me that Saturday night. I spent two and a half days in the Guys in White's Headquarters. They did many horrible things that are to gruesome for television but vaguely, they tortured me for information and also because they felt like it. They performed experiments on me that were extremely painful and tried to dissect me while I was still alive – well, alive in ghost terms."

"I am very sorry to hear that. You have my condolences."

Danny gave him a nod, "Thank you."

"You've been very honest about the Guys in White, however you have not said any bad things about the Fenton's or the Red Huntress. Are they better than the GIW?"

Danny wanted to say that he hadn't said anything about them because they weren't talking about them but he pushed those words back and instead said, "Oh, most certainly.

"The Fenton's are great inventors and Maddie and Jack Fenton are good ghost hunters. I do love the weapons they make. They look so cool. And the Red Huntress is the best ghost hunter this city has – besides myself. But even though she tries to destroy me every time she sees me, I can't be mad at her. This is what she does and she's _amazing_ at it."

"Those are powerful words for people trying to essentially, kill you."

"Yes, but they're true. The Fenton's are amazing scientists and inventors and the Red Huntress is a top-notch ghost hunter."

"There is much speculation over who the Red Huntress is. Do you know her identity?"

Danny was slightly expecting Lance Thunder to ask this, "No, but if I did know, I wouldn't tell anyone. That's their business and because they cover their face I have no right to violate their privacy.

"You are very respectable comparatively to other ghosts. Do you know why that is?"

"I'm not quite sure but I think it's because I remember being human compared to other ghosts who don't remember or have very few memories. I'm not sure why I'm this way but I'm happy this way because it means I can help people instead of hurting them."

"Do you think that because you have more human memories and qualities than other ghosts that it makes the idea of Miss Manson and you being together more possible?"

Danny shrugged, "I guess it could, but just because something is plausible doesn't mean it happened. Me and Sam Manson are not together no matter what people might want to believe. That is the fact."

"I believe you. So, you have these human memories, do you remember your death?"

A flash of the portal lighting up and phantom type pain shot through him. "Yes."

A soft look appeared on Lance Thunder's face and Danny knew the next question was going to be asked. He was actually waiting for this question to pop up considering this was the first time he'd sat down and spoken with someone about what was happening in his life.

"I don't want to be rude but might you tell us what happened?"

Danny gave him a small side smile, "In the human world it's human nature to ask these kinds of questions and I understand because I occasionally do that, however in the Zone it is an extremely rude thing to ask, though mostly everybody just seems to know how you died anyway. But you did ask nicely so I will tell you only one word to sum it up and not say anymore. Electrocution." He didn't really want to answer that question, but now it saved him from being bombarded by that particular question all the time. He just wanted everyone off his back.

"I'm sorry, I did not mean to over step. And I'm sorry about what happened to you."

Danny shrugged again, "It's alright. But I'm probably the only one who would have responded nicely if asked, so don't try to ask any other ghost."

Lance Thunder chuckled, albeit a bit nervously. "I won't. Okay, Phantom we have time for just one last question."

"Alright, shoot."

"Why is it that you protect Amity Park?"

Danny let out a breath. That was such a loaded question. "When I was alive I was always prone to helping people, but I mainly kept to myself. But after my Death and ghosts were now terrorizing the city I just wanted to make sure everyone was safe. It started out small, only helping a few people – mainly because I was still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I was dead. But soon it became a full time job. I loved helping people, even if at first no one was happy with me. But people in this city don't deserve to have their lives thwarted by ghosts and I try to make sure they can go about their lives as normal."

Though some of it wasn't quite true he knew he had to say something that wouldn't give away his secret identity. At least 95% of what he said was the truth.

"Thank you very much, Phantom. It has been a pleasure speaking with you." Lance Thunder reached a hand across the table they sat at.

Danny smiled and reached a gloved hand out as well, shaking his hand. "You as well."

* * *

 **October 7th, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **Valerie's Apartment**

 **10:15 p.m.**

The screen of her television turned to black as Valerie angrily smashed the on/off button on her remote. She couldn't believe what was just shown on the news. She threw the remote to her bed and punched her punching bag hanging from the ceiling harder than before.

How dare he say those things about her! He had no right. _Punch, punch, kick._

She rolled her eyes. _Punch, punch_. How could people be so stupid to eat that up? She spun and performed a roundhouse kick followed by two quick jabs. How blind were the people to believe the false pretenses he was giving them?

She stopped and steadied the punching bag before starting up again.

Well, she did believe _some_ of what he said. She didn't believe that he was overshadowing Sam; she was too stubborn for that anyway, Valerie knew that Sam _never_ not wanted to be in control of herself and believed that she would be able to dispel any ghost that would try that on her. _But_ , that didn't mean that Phantom still wasn't a horrible ghost and people needed to open their eyes to the fact that he was playing them.

She wondered how Danielle could be so nice and innocent compared to Phantom. How did they get so different?

She shook her head from her thoughts as words of him bad mouthing the GIW came to the front of her mind. How dare he bad mouth the GIW! She's calculated the ghostly encounters since they've arrived and just in this past month alone it has reduced by 5%. That was a lot considering where they lived.

She growled in frustration and began going at the bag fiercer than before, her mind filled with the words of Phantom's interview.

* * *

 **October 7th, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **Fenton Works**

 **6:20 p.m.**

Jack and Maddie continued to stare open mouthed at the T.V. where the News continued to roll on.

"What in the world!" Maddie exclaimed. "How could they let him just… just say those things!" She jumped up and began pacing the room – much like Danny – while Jack sat on the couch with his hands folded together and leaning on his knees. "Don't they realize that he's playing right into their hands? I thought the people of this town were smarter than that."

"So did I Mads." Jack sighed sill registering all that he head.

"And furthermore what was all that about Danny and Tucker and Sam? He said that they met before! But then he goes and says that he's not overshadowing Sam? That's too suspicious. Most certainly unbelievable. And our own son being friends with him and helping him? I don't believe one word of it. We've taught Danny better than that."

"Maybe we should ask Danny, get his side of the story." Jack suggested. He wanted to hear what his son had to say before he started giving his opinion about what had just happened.

"You're right." Maddie walked over to the bottom of the stairs and called up to Danny's closed door. "Danny! Can you come down here?" She moved back to stand by Jack as the door clicked open and they heard Danny's foot falls. Maddie grew a bit nervous because she wasn't sure how Danny was going to respond to what they were about to say and she really didn't want to drive more of a wedge between them. But she needed to know.

Finally he stood in front of them wearing a hoodie, hands stuffed in the large pocket and a pair of grey sweatpants. "What's up?"

Maddie thought he had looked extremely tired but now that he spoke she could h _ear_ it. She wondered if they needed to get him checked again for his sleeping habits. He always seemed so tired these days.

"We we're just watching the News and an interview with Phantom was done and they showed it tonight." She watched his face for a reaction but he remained passive and shrugged slightly.

"Okay. And you called me down to tell me that?" His brows furrowed slightly in confusion. Maddie deemed that he must not have known that Phantom was doing this, which gave her a small hope that they weren't friends like it had been stated by Phantom earlier.

"Actually," Jack spoke up, "He mentioned your name in his interview."

"Not just mentioned, he said that you, Tucker and Sam have helped him fight ghosts before." Maddie added.

Danny shrugged again, "Yeah, but that was a long time ago. Like Freshman year, and it was only one ghost; the Lunch Lady. Phantom's pretty cool."

There went her hope. Maddie couldn't believe her ears for the second time that day. Phantom had been telling the truth. Her baby boy was helping that monster; she couldn't let that happen again. She and Jack and raised him to understand how dangerous and horrid ghosts were and here he was standing before her and Jack and telling them that he was 'pretty cool'.

"Danny, baby, you don't really believe this do you?"

"Yeah." He let out a yawn, "I mean, he's not a bad ghost or anything. He helps people more than what you'd think."

"But, son, we've taught you how ghosts can be manipulative and make you believe certain things that you wouldn't want to believe." Jack jumped in and Maddie saw a flash of anger developed over Danny's blue eyes before passing.

"No, he's not like that. I know what you've both taught me but I've actually gotten to know him and he's not a bad ghost. There are a few good ghosts out there, you guys. I mean have you _seen_ the News stories about all the people he's saved?"

"Well, yes." Maddie had seen them because Jazz had always been keeping scrapbooks over the good deeds Phantom had been doing. Now that Jazz was in college she was now sending her news articles to read about Phantom saving the day. What had gone wrong with both of her children? She had to have messed up somewhere for both of them to believe that there were some ghosts that were _good_. "But Danny, those instances are being done because he wants to stay on the good side of the community, he doesn't want the people to see what he really is. And you can't let yourself fall under that illusion as everyone else has."

"Your mother's right. Phantom is trying to make sure that no one speaks out against him. He wants everyone to forget all the bad he's done while he's been here." Danny rolled his eyes at this and Maddie couldn't fathom that this was happening in this moment. Apparently neither could Jack, "Phantom also mentioned that you've met up with him. Talked with him. Why didn't you tell us about these meetings?"

Danny rolled his eyes again; the fierce look was back and let out a breath, throwing his hands up in the air. Maddie noticed how much he looked like Jack when he threw his arms up like that. "Because I knew you would react like you are now! And I knew that you would go crazy and just start saying all these negative things about him. He's doing this city a favor. He's beating down the ghosts and he's saved so many people from car accidents to people committing suicide. All that bad stuff that happened when he first arrived wasn't even his fault. That was other ghosts trying to make his life horrible here and if you just gave him a chance you would see that he's not evil like you keep making him out to be."

Maddie let out a sigh, she hated that he had gotten her temper. It made things like this so hard to deal with. "What about Sam, Danny? You say he's a good ghost but what he's done to Sam is…"

"Is _nothing_! He's not overshadowing Sam!"

"It's a lie Danny. If you really cared about her you'd want Phantom out of her."

Fire roared to life in his eyes, "How could you even say that?" He hissed, "Of course I care about her. _I love her_! But there is no ghost. I've run the tests, multiple times since this whole situation and there is no ghost overshadowing her."

Maddie didn't like the sound of that. She turned to look at Jack, "We'll need to check our equipment. There must be faulty wiring."

"There's not." She heard Danny say, but ignored his words.

"If the GIW got a reading and we're not we must be having a problem."

"Or they're lying." Danny threw his hands out to the side with his palms towards each other in 'it's so obvious' gesture.

Maddie shook her head a small sad smile forming on the corner of her lips and turned back to Danny. But Jack asked before she could, "Now, why would the GIW have any reason to lie about that?"

"Oh, I don't know, to get Phantom to come save Sam and then capture him and then destroy him completely."

She was not a fan of the tone of voice he was emitting. "The GIW are good ghost hunters. A bit unorthodox at points and quite annoying, but they do know what they're doing."

Danny growled. "Fine, don't believe me like usual." He turned on his heels and made his way back towards the stairs.

"Danny!" Maddie called, her brows furrowed. But he didn't turn around and made his way back to his room. She growled in annoyance as his door slammed and began pacing again. "Both of our children, Jack. _Both!_ Believe that Phantom is good. And Danny can't see past this to realize that Sam is in trouble. _Sam!_ What are we going to do with him?"

Jack let out a long sigh and rubbed the back of his neck, "We'll have to figure out ways to show him that Phantom is bad. But in the meantime we'll just have to keep an eye on Sam and make sure that she's okay after the GIW pull Phantom out of her."

Maddie wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed her biceps a bit nervously. "I do hope she'll be okay after everything. She's a strong girl but even this could mess her up big time."

"She'll be okay, Mads. Like you just said she's a strong girl and she'll have us and her grandma and Danny and Tucker to help her after everything."

"With all this happening do you think it's a good idea to go to that two week Ghost Hunting convention down in Texas?" She stopped pacing and locked eyes with him.

"We still have almost two weeks before we leave, I think that's enough time for everything to cool down. And we'll wait until next week when Danny's cooled down enough to tell him that we'll be gone till November 2nd. And he'll be able to keep himself in check while we're away. I've actually already spoken with Maurice and he said him and Angela would love to have him over while we're away. But that if he doesn't want to stay then they'll make sure to stop by and check on him."

"No, no we need to make sure he stays with them. I trust Danny, but _two weeks alone_ in this house? I don't see that ending well."

* * *

 **October 7th, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **Foley Residents**

 **6:30 p.m.**

"Tucker!" Both of his parents looked at him with alarmed eyes. "You never told us that you had made friends with Phantom."

"Oh!" Tucker looked at them both with wide eyes, "I really only spoke with him a couple of times."

Angela wanted to smirk at her son's statement because she knew he was lying but let it go because she still wanted him to tell her when he was ready. "Oh okay, well I'm okay with you hanging out with him. Just don't get hurt with those ghost fights okay?"

"Um," He looked so confused by her response that she let a smile come over her face. "Okay, mom. I uh, I think I 'm going to go start on my homework." He made his way upstairs and she turned to look at Maurice who had begun chuckling quietly.

"At least Danny's finally done an interview to try and get everything cleared up." Angela began chuckling as well a bit louder than her husband.

"Very true. Poor, Tucker. He still has no idea."

"I know! But he'll tell us when he's ready."

* * *

 **October 7th, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **Manson Mansion**

 **8:30 p.m.**

Ida was extremely happy that Danny was able to get the interview done and finally get the correct information out to the public. She knew that from what he had said about the GIW that there was a high chance that many of the people would be on his and Sam's sides but she knew that it wouldn't enough for the GIW to not follow through with their plan. Her son and wife were however very unhappy about the interview that was shown on the evening news.

"Just because Phantom has said these things does not mean we are believing them like the rest of the public. We know better, that he is just playing everyone so he will be seen in a good light. You will still be going with the GIW on Thursday." Pamela said from her position on the couch next to Jeremy.

Ida wanted to reach over and place her hand over Sam's but she knew that it would only have annoyed Sam during this time.

"You still believe everything even after that? Why am I not surprised." She rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. "You know he's telling the truth, about everything. And I've been telling the truth the whole time. I'm your daughter, why can't you trust me to tell you the truth this time?"

"Because you're involved with that ghost." Jeremey pointed out a frown on his face. Ida sighed heavily; sometimes she wanted to just take him over her knee like when he was little for acting so close-minded. Of course now she couldn't quite do it, but maybe he'd finally start seeing reason.

"That shouldn't change anything!" Sam growled, "I'm your daughter for crying out loud." And with that she got up from the couch and stomped off. Ida figured she was going up to her room to talk with Danny and Tucker to see how their own parents had reacted since Sam hadn't mentioned anything to her earlier.

"I hope things go back to normal once the GIW exorcise Phantom's essence from her. I really hate how dark she's gotten recently." Jeremy sighed, running a hand down his face.

"If you both would open your ears and possibly your minds you'd realize how idiotic you're both being." Ida said before following Sam out of the living room ignoring the shocked looks her son and daughter-in-law threw her.

* * *

 **October 7th, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **Vlad's Mansion**

 **10:20 p.m.**

Vlad switched the channel of the TV over to CNN but did not concentrate on the Anderson Cooper show, he was more concerned about the interview he'd seen done by Daniel.

Vlad knew that Daniel was coming into his own and now that he'd taken the reigns himself and actually performed an interview to shut down the rumors and clear people's heads, he couldn't have been more proud with the way Daniel was maturing. The way he handled himself throughout the entire interview proved to him that he had learned a few things from himself about how to conduct himself properly.

He reached over and began petting Maddie who purred happily at the attention, "Ah, Maddie, the boy is finally growing up. Though he did conduct himself well in his interview I am a bit warry of how it will affect our plans. If Daniel is able to get the people of Amity Park to collectively drive the GIW out of this city the rest of what we have planned is not going to go well. I'll have to re-plan around that and do most of the dirty work myself."

Maddie meowed and Vlad turned to smile down at her, "Oh, it's not that I mind my dear, however having someone else perform those actions just makes things that much easier." She meowed again as he began rubbing her ears.

"How about we check on our little rebel, hmm?" Vlad reached for the remote again switching monitors to his live video feeds from his bugs he had in many places. He focused on one bug however as it showed a live feed of Danielle walking amongst a crowd next to the Roman Colosseum.

"My, my, she's traveled a bit far from last night from Crete to Rome. I wonder what she's doing back there."

* * *

 **October 8th, 2014**

 **Wednesday**

 **Casper High: Homeroom**

 **8:00 a.m.**

The next morning as the trio arrived at school they were mildly surprised at the amount of support they were receiving. The radio stations were filled with chatter about the interview that Danny had made and they couldn't escape it once they had gotten to school because it seemed that no one had anything else to discuss except Danny's interview. This of course was fine by them considering everyone took to staying on Danny's side of things.

Upon their arrival to Lancer's Homeroom they were greeted with the video of Danny's interview with Lance Thunder on the projector screen; everyone chatting away about what they had seen last night and what was happening on the screen in front of them. The trio looked at each other in confusion as they took their usual seats in the back because Paulina was _now believing,_ that Sam and Phantom actually weren't together – which was incredibly odd, but a nice change of pace.

Lancer called the class to order, though it took quite some time to get everyone to be quiet and he had to pause the interview before the class could get under control.

"I see that everyone has seen the interview that Phantom had with Lance Thunder. During Homeroom I would like everyone to discuss what's been going on – not that you weren't already doing that – but in a much orderly fashion and with no yelling." Lancer started the video again and the voices of their fellow students filled the room but at a much lower volume than before.

"So is it just me or is it weird that everyone went from hating you to now being on your side?" Tucker asked, keeping an ear open on the conversations going on around him.

"Pretty weird considering they were all gung-ho on criticizing me before. Not that I'm forgiving anyone for that. But still weird." Sam pursed her lips to the side of her mouth.

"I can't believe just one interview was able to convince everyone that you weren't lying." Danny grumbled crossing his arms over his chest. "The people of this town are too easily persuaded by things. Of course it worked in our favor at the moment, but before, that was just wrong on so many levels."

"Well, people are idiots." Tucker said in agreement. "And since they don't lead our lives they have to get their drama from somewhere."

"If Vlad hadn't given them the photo in the first place we wouldn't have needed to worry about people getting up in all of our business." Danny grumbled in annoyance over the older man.

"Yeah, but it _did_ happen and we were able to make people see reason again. Or at least get them off yours and Sam's back; not that it helped with the GIW."

"That may be. I wonder how everyone's going to respond in Ghost 101." Sam mused. "I mean on the radio we heard that there were already protestors down at the court house saying that the GIW need to leave Amity Park. And from what we've heard from the chatter around here so far, everyone doesn't want the GIW to be interfering anymore."

"It'd make our lives that much easier if they left." Danny sighed, "That would be one thing off my 'worry' list."

"And you know how our luck goes." Tucker heaved a sigh.

"Pretty shitty." Danny and Sam simultaneously said making Tucker and both of them chuckle.

The day was filled with discussion over Danny Phantom's Interview and Sam was being given apologies left and right. She had gotten her 50th apology by someone she barely knew, when she snapped. She loudly told everyone in the hallways that if they didn't stop apologizing and giving her sad, sorry looks she would give then next person that did, more than just a black eye. The other students backed off a bit after that but she could still practically feel their eyes on her. Paulina and the other popular girls never came up to say their apologies and she was thankful for that because Sam had no idea how she would have responded to that.

During their U.S. History class their teacher pulled up the new video of protestors outside of the Court House. Citizens were still protesting the GIW but now they are saying that the GIW needed to be brought to justice for what they did to Phantom and now to Sam.

There were now GIW Agents in front of the crowd, including Director Mendoza. He told the people that ghosts did not have rights in this realm. The people did not respond well and the students watching did not respond well either. They believed that because of what had happened that there needed to be new laws instated for ghosts to have at least some rights – and only the good ghosts.

The trio had been incredibly surprised by the amount of support that they –Phantom – was receiving. They never suspected that talk of _ghost rights_ would come from this interview that was only made to get the people off their back about dating rumors. This was taking a turn and they had no idea which way they were going.

The news traveled around school quickly and there was word that there was going to be a group formed to discuss the idea of _ghost rights_. Danny, Sam and Tucker weren't sure if it was going to really happen but it would be something they would keep on, but were unsure if they would join _themselves_.

The most interesting part of their school day of course happened in ghost 101.

The class was weirdly filled with silence as the trio entered the classroom. They weren't the last ones in the classroom but as they took their seats and waited for others to file in to the science classroom, no one spoke to each other or were rambunctious. Everyone sat silently at their black tables with the tools from Monday laid out again.

"Alright class." Agent Z called to order and everyone stayed silent which was pretty normal, however it was an eerie silence and the trio wasn't quite sure what was going on, but they knew it was better to follow along in these types of situations. "Today we're going to finish up our papers on the frog dissection, then go over a few basics of ghost dissection that we'll perform on Wednesday. Go ahead and pull out your lab sheets from yesterday."

There were a few rustlings but those were quickly stopped. The trio watched as 90% of the class stared straight ahead at Agent Z. They had never seen the populars and the geeks and everyone else work together on something. It was disorienting.

Agent Z looked at the class in confusion as everyone continued to look at him. "Did we all go temporarily deaf?" He arched an eyebrow that could be seen above his sunglasses.

"I take offense to that." Kimberly Tabor said at the front of the classroom – she had had hearing aids since she was in seventh grade.

"Sorry, Kimberly." Agent Z tried to placate her, but still no one moved towards their backpacks. "This is about the interview with Phantom isn't it."

A resounding, "yes" made its way around the room with a few nods from some of the quieter people.

Agent Z sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Alright, you're not the first class to do this and I will tell you the same thing I told them. If you do not start on your labs you will receive a 0 on the lab and your in-class participation grade for the day."

Gasps echoed in the classroom along with a couple of "what's!" The students who spoke began pulling out their labs so they could still receive their grades but the other 23 students stayed still in their seats. The trio knew they could go a day or two with zeros as their grades because of how well they did in the class without trying, so they did as the other students did. They kind of wanted to see Agent Z blow his top anyway.

Sadly for them Agent Z kept his composure in front of them. "Alright, but do not expect this behavior to continue tomorrow because if it does, detentions will be given and phone calls to parents will be made."

He received a couple of okay's and a few nods before everyone was silent and still again. The trio spent the rest of class in silence as well. Sam worked on a few new drawings, Tucker was working on the calculations for a better Booomerang and Danny started on the day's homework that he had been given by Tucker or Sam when he was out of the school.

When Wednesday rolled around the hype over Danny's interview was still prominent and there was even more talk around the school about forming a club to discuss potential ghost rights. The trio still couldn't believe the back up and support the students were showing Phantom. And not only the students but the citizens of Amity Park were in full swing of discussing the horrible actions of the GIW.

When Ghost 101 rolled around the trio was surprised to realize that people were still board with the plan to not participate in the days dissection of the level 3 ghosts. And just as Agent Z said he would, he administered detentions to everyone who rebelled and a promise to call their parents.

Danny, Sam and Tucker did not receive detentions, mainly because it was October and they couldn't exactly afford anymore – especially Danny. The extinguished ghost that laid before them was most definitely a frog. Everyone had a ghostly frog on their dissection pan.

"This is so wrong. And worse than the other frogs." Sam looked at the ghostly form with sadness. "It's against nature."

"Ah, but Miss Manson." Agent Z appeared next to their table, "The ghosts themselves are against nature." And then he moved on to the next table to make sure those who were participating had everything ready.

"Can I hit him?" Tucker whispered.

"Maybe later." Danny grumbled, but was in agreement with his best friend. He looked down at the sprawled out ghost frog in front of him and frowned because he knew that they had more than likely been killed again for the only purpose of this classroom. He wondered what soul had been extinguished? What soul had to die twice to wind up in this classroom in front of him? Of course he wanted to know what soul chose to be a frog in the ghostly world, but it wasn't his place and it wasn't as though he could ask most of the ghost animals – just as in the human world, they did not speak. Well at least 90% of them.

On the projector in front of them listed everything for them to find:

 **Ghostly Organs**

 **Heart**

 **Lungs**

 **Stomach**

 **Intestines**

 **Esophagus**

 **Kidneys**

 **Core (next to the heart)**

 ***Goal: Identify the differences of these organs from a real frog**

"So who's gonna do it?" Tucker questioned looking queasily at the tools on the black topped table.

"I will." Danny resigned, voice hard. "Might as well, right? You two just take the notes, okay."

They both agreed and Danny began the dissection. After pinning the ghostly frogs legs down he made a small incision with the scalpel between the hind legs, then up the center of the glowing green body. The frog leaked ectoplasm – not only from the small incisions but from the outside part of its body. He didn't like what he was doing but he was actually curious about seeing a core in real life, he was always curious about what his own looked like.

After he was done cutting through the tissue and the muscle he was confronted with a hardened ecoplasmic sternum. He followed the same directions from Monday by using the scissors to cut through it and took out the small bone like strips.

He first identified the heart at the top which looked considerably similar to the frog belonging in the human realm; however it was a dark green color instead of red. To the bottom of the heart he identified the liver, but he wasn't too concerned with it, he was more concerned to the organ just to the left of the heart, close to the center of the body. It was a light green color but not something warm – more electric looking. He was actually kind of disappointed at the color. He had thought it was going to be blue, but he wasn't sure if it was because that's what he thought his own was going to look like or not.

"Everything else looks really gross but I actually thought the core was going to be long and tubular." Tucker said leaning over to take another look at the frog.

"Me too." Sam agreed, looking at the bright green core as well from Danny's other side. "But it's just kind of flat and circular."

It was a small piece, a bit bigger than the heart but Danny figured it had to be considering this was where the frogs energy came from and not the heart. "I wonder if they're all the same." Danny mused aloud, then looked up and towards the table to their left where Mikey, Nathan and Gregory sat, trying to get a look at their own ghostly frog but he wasn't able to see the inside of their frog from his angle very well.

"I can't see theirs. But I'm guessing that at least the frogs cores look the same. I still want to, _you know_ …" He looked at them pointedly and they nodded that they knew what he meant. Sam herself supplied the rest of the sentence through their mind link.

"It's probably similar to Frostbite's considering the cryokinesis." Sam supplied outside of the mind link.

"We'll have to ask him about it the next time we see him." Danny agreed. "But for now, let's try to get this done as soon as possible."

* * *

 **October 9th, 2014**

 **Thursday**

 **GIW Headquarters**

 **4:00 p.m.**

Sam _really_ hated the GIW Headquarters.

And she _really_ hated the GIW.

After finally serving her last detention she had left the school with the plan to meet up with Danny and Tucker outside by her car. However, instead of Danny and Tucker standing by her car she found her parents and Agent Z. She reached out with her mind to find Danny and asked him where he was.

' _Me and Tucker are fighting a couple of ghost teachers in the gym right now. You done with detention?'_

' _Yeah, but um, I went to meet you guys by my car and instead I found my parents and Agent Z.'_

' _What!'_

' _Exactly. This shouldn't take long and I'll call you guys afterward so I can tell you what happened.'_

' _Ugh, I am so not happy about this.'_

' _Me either. But I guess once it's done we won't have to worry about this particular instance again.'_

' _Be safe.'_

' _You too.'_

Sam and her parents were placed in Agent Z's car and taken immediately to the GIW Headquarters. Sam kept quiet despite her parents trying to ask her how her day had gone, eventually they stopped trying to have her partake in discussion. Upon arrival to the GIW Headquarters, her parents were told to stay in the same front room that she and Tucker and Jazz had snuck into – the room made her feel as though she was back there that night that they rescued Danny and a shiver ran down her spine.

Now, she was being led down the main hallway and to the first elevator that Team Phantom had used.

"We will be taking you to one of our labs on the third floor." One of her guards told her after he had pressed the sb-3 button on the elevator and the doors closed. She had 3 guards and did not know any of their names. When she and her parents had arrived Agent Z had immediately left them in the hands of the Agents working the front desk, and she had no clue as to where he had gone.

She did not respond to the Agents' statement. When the elevator finally stopped and opened on the sub-basement third level, she followed or rather was forced to follow, the tallest Agent straight down the hallway. When the hallway ended they turned right and moved down past three doors before the Agent in front of her stopped in front of a fourth.

The lead Agent slid his keycard through the card reader and the door opened. "An Agent will be with you soon." He said as he stepped aside and waved a hand for her to step inside.

She silently did as he asked, not liking it one bit, but she knew if she didn't play by their rules they could do things to her no matter what she or her parents said. The door slid closed behind her and she took a seat on one of the counters that housed a sink, gloves, towels and a few other things she couldn't recognize. There was an examination table in the center of the room but she kept her eyes averted because each time she looked at the table and the white walls blaring down on her, all she could see was Danny's broken form laid out in front of her.

' _Sam?'_

Crap, she had hoped her walls would have held to keep him out while she was there, _'Hey.'_

' _You, okay?'_

' _Yeah, yeah.'_ She sighed and leaned back against the wall. _'Just, they put me in a room similar to the one we found you in.'_

' _What! They put you in one of their labs?'_

She could clearly hear his anger through their link and she did her best to send calm emotions through to him. _'I'm fine, I promise. It just brought up some of those memories. But I'm okay.'_

' _Okay, if you say so. Good luck.'_

' _Thanks, love you.'_ She hadn't expected it to come out at this moment in time but it felt good to say.

' _Love you, too.'_

She waited another long five minutes, keeping her eyes closed against the blinding white walls when the door finally swished open revealing Agent Mendoza and Agent Z.

"Hello, Miss Manson." Agent Mendoza said without a smile. "I hope you didn't have to wait too long."

She shook her head and hopped down from the counter, but stood with her back pressed securely to the edge. "No, it wasn't long." She looked over to Agent Z to see that he was actually holding something in his left hand. "That looks like the Fenton's Ghost Catcher."

"Yes, it is quite similar seeing as they sold us the blueprints of the device." Agent Z answered, a small smirk played on his lips. Sam didn't like that look so much.

It wasn't as large as the Fenton's Ghost Catcher, about half the size actually. A small hum emitted from the device and she wondered how this was going to work with it being smaller than the version the Fenton's had.

"Stand away from the counter, please." Agent Mendoza told her and she obliged a bit reluctantly, standing in between the examination table and the counter. "Stay still. We will pass the device from your head to your toes."

"And it won't hurt?" She added trying to play up the idea that she really shouldn't know anything about the equipment.

"None at all." Agent Mendoza grabbed one end of the Ghost Catcher while Agent Z held the other end and pulled it above her head.

She kept her head straight and eyes forward as they moved the device down over her body. The green light from the ectoplasm among the netting blinded her for a few seconds but went away just as quick. When they reached her boots she stepped over the device and out of the dream catcher-like circle.

"Alright, we are done." Agent Z said, pulling the device to a standing position.

"So, I'm free to go?"

"Yes. I'll escort you to your parents." Agent Mendoza smiled at her as Agent Z left the room. The smile made the hairs on the back of Sam's neck stand on end.

"Thank you." She moved towards the door as he did, following him back down the hallways and to the elevator. The ride was completely silent, much to Sam's preference. She thought she was home free once she and Agent Mendoza had reached the front room again. But as they cleared the hallway into the larger ceilinged room, he reached out a hand, and grabbed her shoulder, and stopped her.

She saw her parents rise from the chairs they had been waiting on, before turning to face the Agent. She was surprised to find him incredibly close to her face, but when she tried to pull away his fingers dug into her shoulder, keeping her in place.

"What–" She narrowed her eyes at him, wondering what this was about. He moved towards the side of her head, mouth dangerously close to her ear, but she kept still this time.

"We know, everything. I advise that you four watch your backs. Playing in the adult world is cause for adult consequences." He pulled away and before Sam could catch up with what was just said to her, turned and spoke to her approaching parents. "We are done and she is free from Phantom's influence."

"Oh, thank you. My baby!" her mother cried and pulled her into a hug. She responded slowly not quiet focusing on her mother but the words that had just registered in her mind. She kept her eyes on Agent Mendoza as he shook hands with her father.

"Sammy, honey. How do you feel?"

"I…" She turned away from Agent Mendoza to look into her mothers' eyes, as she had pulled back from their hug to look at her. "I'm fine. I'm… better."

"She'll be a bit disoriented for at most an hour considering she was under Phantom's hold for so long. But she will be just as she was before, I promise."

"Thank you, again. So much." Her mother said, keeping one arm around Sam's shoulders and shook Agent Mendoza's hand.

"You're very welcome ma'am." He nodded and let go of Pamela's hand. "Let us know if her disorientation lasts longer than a day. We'll need to see her again if it does."

"We will." Her father agreed before wrapping his arm around her other shoulder and lead her back out the front doors where an Agent stood at the ready with a car.

All three of them sat in the back and Sam finally let a small bit of panic seep through. 'Danny. _'_

' _You finished? Everything go okay? Me and Tucker are at my house if you wanna come on by, but Maddie and Jack are home so be pre-pared to be bombarded by them about your little trip with the GIW.'_

' _Yeah, I'll meet at your house because we have a problem. A huge problem!'_

' _What's wrong? What is… they know_ everything _?'_ She sighed; he must have seen the image/ memory of the short conversation that had happened.

' _I don't_ know _. That's what he told me! I mean what the hell do they_ know _? But why would he say that to me unless he didn't absolutely know everything?'_

' _Fuck. This is not good. Not good at all. How long until you're here?'_

' _Twenty minutes. Thirty tops.'_

' _Okay. Okay.'_ She just knew he was running a hand through his hair. _'I'll tell Tucker what's happened and then when you get here we'll try and figure out what to do.'_

' _Okay.'_ Sam kept the link open as they ended their conversation. She could feel his worry mix with her own, along with his anger.

When they arrived back at the school she made an arrangement with her parents that she would be home no later than 6 p.m. for dinner after seeing Danny and Tucker. Sam didn't like it, but agreed anyway considering they had not put up much of a fight about her getting her tattoo tomorrow.

She parked in the driveway behind Maddie's car at Fenton Works. She slowly opened the front door and sighed with relief that Jack and Maddie were nowhere in her line of vision. She hurriedly closed the door and made her way into Danny's room where she found him pacing his bedroom floor and Tucker going through files on his own computer.

"Good, you made it." Danny stopped in his pacing and threw his arms around Sam, picked her up slightly off the ground as he hugged her tight.

"Danny!" She cried, "Put me down!"

He did as she said and quickly kissed her on the lips before letting go of her completely. _'Sorry, I just don't like… that you were there alone.'_

' _I can handle myself.'_ She rolled her eyes.

"Sam, did they really say those things?" Tucker swirled around to look at her in his chair.

' _I know. Still didn't make me less nervous.'_ Danny spoke in her mind while she answer allowed to Tucker's question, "Yes. But it was Agent Mendoza who told me, which makes this all that much worse."

"Great." Tucker grumbled and leaned on the arm rest of the chair. "But he didn't say _what_ he knows?"

Danny sat down on his bed, while Sam continued to stand; both him and Tucker looked at her expectantly. But she only shook her head, "No. He just said everything. Then he said, 'All four of us need to watch our backs and playing in the adult world means suffering adult consequences'."

"But how do they know? I mean, it has to be about my identity, right? What else would it be about. But… but how did they figure it out, I thought we got out of there before they got any of that information."

"That's what I've been trying to figure out."

"Have you called Jazz?" Sam asked and Tucker turned back to his computer, looking through all the information the GIW had on Phantom.

"Yeah." Danny answered and got up again to begin pacing once more. "I told her what you said and to watch her back as well. She told us to do the same and contact her at least twice a day so she knows we're all alright."

"A bit excessive, but I'm okay with that." Sam agreed, taking a seat on Danny's empty bed. "As long as Jazz is watching _her_ back too."

"I can't find anything in here about them knowing about you!" Tucker threw his hands up in frustration. "We have all the samples still that were in the room we had gotten you from. And there's nothing in their systems. _Nothing_!"

"Then they had to have had another sample of my DNA somewhere else then." Danny folded his arms across his chest.

"How else could they know?" Sam said, "But why tell me now? It's been a little over a month since they captured Danny, why now?"

"Maybe it was because of all that nonsense with the news about you two… maybe they decided to tell us that they didn't believe your lies." Tucker responded, leaning back in the computer chair.

"Honestly it doesn't matter how or why or when or whatever anymore." Danny growled. "All that matters now is keeping watch at all times. They know not only _me_ but about the two of you and Jazz. They can do whatever they want if we let them. We keep our guard up. We do not split up. We keep in contact when we are not together if we do end up being separated. I know that they're going to try and scare us, then not do anything until we have become 'comfortable'. That is _not_ going to happen. We can't let our guard down."

* * *

 **October 10th, 2014**

 **Friday**

 **Casper High**

 **1:50 p.m.**

Keeping a guard on their backs at all times was getting quite tiresome. They each agreed that more than likely nothing would happen during school hours, but they also were not sure that something _wouldn't_.

The three of them now wore modified Fenton earphones – done by Maddie – that were well hidden in the ear and found it easier to communicate.

When they arrived in ghost 101 they sat in their typical seats in their usual classroom. They expected to be treated a bit differently than before as they spoke over the comparisons the people who did the labs found between human world frogs and ghost frogs. But Agent Z treated them the same as any other day. But they didn't let their guard down once.

It was tiring but necessary.

After class concluded at 2:40 p.m. they drove towards downtown where Sam's tattoo parlor sat. She had already had a discussion with her tattoo artist about what she wanted done that day and scheduled a time for 3 o'clock.

When they walked into the Inked Galaxy, Sam was immediately welcomed by her artist, Marie. She wasn't hard to miss with her bright red hair, and large blue eyes. "Sam!" Oh, I'm so happy to see you! Girl we really need to catch up! Especially with all this gossip going on." She wrapped her inked arms around Sam. She realized she was getting hugged way too much recently, she would have to figure a way to combat all of this touchy- feelyness that she didn't want to partake in.

ould choose to become President of the United States as to not be labeled as the most hated person in the world. of the United

Sam chuckled, "Most definitely." She turned and gestured to Danny and Tucker. "You remember my friends, Danny and Tucker, correct?"

She smiled at them and shook their hands, "Oh, yes. Tucker you were the one that passed out last time, right?"

Tucker blushed pink as Danny and Sam chuckled remembering when Sam got her first tattoo of a small Danny Phantom insignia and the number 3 on her ankle and as soon as Marie had brought out the tool to do the tattoo, Tucker had taken one look at the needle and promptly passed out.

"Uh, yeah that was me."

"You going to be okay this time around?" Marie asked and led them towards a tattoo station near the back.

"I've decided that I'm not even going to try and look at it. Just tell me when I need to turn around.

Marie chuckled as they entered the small alcove where a black chair waited for Sam. "You two can take a seat if you want." She gestured towards the two chairs against the wall filled with pictures of people show-casing their tattoos. They did as she suggested as Sam took off her backpack and pulled out an older T-shirt; quickly changing into it as Marie closed the curtain between the two high walls to give them privacy.

"Did you bring a ponytail holder?"

"And a head band." Sam flipped her hair over and yanked it up in a high bun, then grabbed the thick headband from her bag and placed it around her head.

"Alright go ahead and take a seat. I'm going to have you rest your face in the face pillow and then we can get started and the boys here can tell me about what's going on. But first," she held up a paper with a drawn out image of Sam's tattoo. "This is correct, right?"

Sam reached for the paper and checked over the spelling of the word 'family' in Ghost: RerFyilim followed underneath in the middle were six small outlines of a bat. "Yep. That's correct." She handed the paper back to Marie and got settled in the chair.

"So, tell me about this suiter guy." Marie started as she got Sam ready. The boys told her what was going on, Sam jumped in a few times but otherwise they were handling the information well. When Marie brought the needle out Tucker turned fully around in his chair, but him and Danny kept up the conversation with Marie as she began her work on Sam's neck with the needle. They kept up a solid string of conversation for the hour that they sat there.

When Sam was done, Marie handed her two mirrors so she could look at it. She immediately fell in love with the cursive yet basic flow to the letters and the six bat outlines below the word. "Oh, I love it." She couldn't keep the smile off her face.

"Good. Let's get you settled away up front. Ae we still on for Sunday?"

"Yep." Sam nodded and got up from the chair, following Marie to the front. "Do you still have my design?"

"Yes, I've gotten it down. And you're sure you want a bright green vine and not something darker?"

"I'm sure." Sam answered. After paying and Marie giving her, her care instructions and the promise of seeing her again on Sunday they group left quickly because if they didn't hurry they were going to be late to Dora's for a lesson in Ghost Language.

They didn't take the Specter Speeder to Dora's as they intended as Maddie and Jack were in the lab working on the ecto-dejecto serum. Danny was able to sneak them through the open portal with no problems and they were on their way. Once the cool air of the Ghost Zone reached them, they felt themselves instantly relax being encompassed by the familiar green energy. They were still on edge considering they _were_ in the Ghost Zone; however it was a different kind of tense. One where they knew what could happen and could handle it without worrying too much. But when they landed inside Dora's castle all of those signals telling them to watch their backs at all times seemed to dissipate and they could actually breathe.

"Sir Phantom, Sir Foley and Lady Manson!" Dora called excitedly, making her way down the front Grand Staircase.

"Hi, Dora!" They called excitedly, accepting a hug each.

"Are you okay, Sam?" Dora asked once she spotted the covering bandage on Sam's neck.

"Oh, it's my new tattoo." She gave her a side smile as Dora pulled back from the hug.

"May I ask what it is?"

"RerFyilim. Followed underneath by six separate outlines of a small bat in one straight line." Sam answered. The group began making their way to the library where they typically held their sessions.

"Family. Very nice. Do the six bats represent: Danny, Tucker, Jasmine, Danielle, your grandmother and yourself?"

"Yep. But I didn't want to write out their names because it just felt like too much and the six bats just felt right and will be easy to add on to later if need be."

"It sounds wonderful. Did it hurt as much as the one you have on your ankle?"

"Not so much. I was expecting it to hurt a lot more but actually it was much better than I thought."

"Very good. And Sir Foley, did you have trouble staying conscious?" Dora looked over her shoulder at Tucker.

"Dora!" His mouth popped open and held his chest in faint agony.

Dora chuckled, "I'm sorry Sir Foley, but you do have a habit for passing out upon seeing a needle."

"Yeah, you're right. But I didn't pass out." He said proudly as they entered the massive library.

"Yeah, because you had to look away before Marie could even bring out her tattooing device." Danny chuckled before taking a seat on one of the cushioned chairs that they had brought from Amity a couple of months ago.

Tucker took a seat on the couch. "But I didn't pass out."

"Yes and we're all very proud of you." Sam threw him a smirk and joined Dora on the other couch.

"Are we ready to begin?"

"Yeah." They all chorused.

"Good, now today what I want all of us to focus on is speaking completely in Ghost. If you need help with a few words you can ask, but I want us to try to not speak in English at all."

Tucker and Danny groaned but Sam was practically excited to try and speak ghost for their entire conversation. "So, what is our base topic to get us going?"

"How about what happened this past week?"

"Wlo, ygaTdei Ih hbau ean inspruhw natu desigentf thr cakrll rgumchriegn abtw mih Phantom siedt dnua Sam. Thr rerpel seiemn natu sbin oan mih siedt ntozw baut rerorvon Pbrl snllc rebmmiiegn wmhi thr GIW."

"Erish tii ricet. Yegtdrn, Ih hbau natu ghoe ni dnua hbau rerish exnnca Dannyiegn Ghesi fasrm mih. Thaas erish sbin rwiy ovrustwiegn mih, baut rerish snllc glbe thaas erish sbin oinn. Dnua adf thaas woz fdiksaoo thr lfued Agent bulellg duw dnua fwiiutrdh ni mih roe thaas erish kawne elathd dnau thr ouy thd rerewi cdaren knedt fvas tii thaas rerish kawne Dannyiegn indtta." Sam ground out.

"Oh, my!" That doesn't sound good at all! Are you completely positive that the GIW know Danny's Identity?"

"Wlo, oinn." Tucker answered. "Baut sii tii moes laiknley thr atsworr."

"I do hope it does not come to that. And this all started with a photo of you two correct?"

"Sejy." Sam answered before Danny. "Rerewi fungr ohuaut thaas sii hbau sbin _Vlad_ natu tnke thr pbicd dnua seckd sii oabf."

"Iofb rerewi hbau sjenmwhor natu ghoe natu dkss Samiegn ntslu rerewi cdaren hbau vami thr woz oleaeiwldgdrr."

"That is a good question, why did you not use your door?" Dora asked. Three sets of confused eyes met her.

"What?" They all asked forgetting to speak in ghost.

"Your Door, Sir Phantom. Surely, you know what I'm speaking of."

"Actually Dora, we don't." Danny answered.

"Yeah, what Door? Like all the ones floating out there in the Zone? One of those?" Tucker asked.

Dora nodded, "Yes, actually. I had no idea that you all were unfamiliar with your Door."

"I… I had no idea!" Danny exclaimed.

"Every ghost receives one. It's their own realm. Sometimes they'll manifest into Islands or other objects similar to the Far Frozen or Skulkers Island. Would you like to go see your door, Sir Phantom?"

"Yeah!" He said excitedly; the first time he'd felt excitement all week. "Do you know where it is?"

"Yes, I've passed it many times. It is on the other side of Pariah's Keep. Though you cannot see Pariah's Keep from the position of your Door."

"We are _so_ going." Tucker enthusiastically got up and began making notes in his PDA.

"Could we go now?" Sam questioned.

"Of course. We'll cut today's lesson short so you can enjoy your new place." The four rose from their seats and made their way back outside. "If you would like you may ride with me to go to your door." Dora spoke up once they were out in the open and immediately transformed into her dragon form.

"Sure, Dora." Tucker answered immediately. Sam took a bit of convincing but eventually agreed while Danny said that he would fly along beside her.

They began their journey back towards Fenton Works and to Danny's door when Tucker realized that Dora had never told them _how_ she had known about Danny's door and voiced this question to the princess.

"Oh, well I have been in the Ghost Zone a long time and though my brother was very… strict, shall we say, I was able to sneak out at times. Whenever I snuck out there would be new doors lining the Zone. Your door Sir Phantom happened to stand out especially because it held the colors blue and green on the outside and I put the pieces together upon hearing about you."

"Wow! That's so cool! How do I get inside? Is there some sort of key?" Danny wasn't sure if it was something he'd have to get from the Observants or not.

"As far as I know, no. Since I do not have a door myself I have not had the first-hand experience. However, Ember has informed me..."

"Wait, you and Ember are friends now?"

"Yes, we have grown very close." But she ignored the trios confused looks and continued on. "But she has said that only she and people she wants are allowed to open the door. She was telling me a few weeks ago that she had made sure that Skulker had lost his access to her door for a while because of their fight."

"That's a cool feature." I can't believe I had no idea about it."

"Now you have all the time to 'check it out', Sir Phantom." Dora slowed down before fully stopping in front of a blue and green door, divided equally diagonally.

"Whoa." The three of them said.

"This looks so cool." Danny hesitantly reached out to touch where the two colors were joined. Dora returned to her humanoid form, gesturing for Danny to go ahead and make a move towards the inside.

There was a round golden knob that Danny reached out for and turned. It opened easily and swung open to reveal a living room. Danny walked in, followed by the others and the door closed softly behind them.

"Wow!" Tucker looked around at the living room, "This looks so nice, and comfy."

The room was the size of an average family room. It held two couches that were plush and light brown and two chairs – one was easily noticeable as a rocking chair. A Coffee table sat in front of the couch against the wall on the other side from them and side tables sat between the couches and chairs. On the wall to their left sat a large flat screen TV mounted on the wall with a long TV stand underneath it where a remote sat. The room was lit up by lights placed in the ceiling.

"And we have TV!" Danny looked at the screen in shock. "I didn't know the Ghost Zone had its own TV channels."

"I think Ember mentioned something about that." Sam said as she walked about the room, "Whenever her, Spectra and Kitty came to get rid of all the men in Amity Park Jazz mentioned that Ember had been complaining that Skulker was always losing the TV remote and that was one of the reasons why she was so pissed off."

"Hahaha, what!" Both Danny and Tucker began cracking up laughing, "Of course it would be like Skulker to lose the remote!" Danny finished.

"But this is cool! That means we can watch whatever we want in the Ghost Zone."

"What about Wi-Fi?" Sam questioned.

"Oh, they have to have Wi-Fi, I mean come on, we're in the 21st century." Tucker walked over to the TV and picked up the remote. "How could the Ghost Zone not!"

"How about before we play with the TV and Wi-Fi we look at the rest of the house." Danny suggested and walked towards the doorway that opened into a small hallway across the opposite side of the room and the others followed.

The hallway was short but held two doors, one on the right side and one on the left. One door opened to reveal a closet and the other opened to reveal a first floor bathroom. They continued down the small hallway a few more feet before the room opened up in front of them to reveal the kitchen. It wasn't something too crazy and was actually quite nice and seemed warm and cozy to Danny.

"Wow! All stainless steel?" Sam looked at the room shocked, "How the hell does the Zone do this?"

"Another question to add to the list to ask Clockwork." Tucker joked as he pushed his way to the fridge, "Do we have any food in here?"

Danny, Sam and Dora rolled their eyes and smirked when Tucker found the fridge to be empty. "This is a pretty nice kitchen." Danny amended aloud. "We'll have to make sure we stock up with plates and bowls and pans and stuff when we come here next."

"And food!"

"Good Lord, Tucker!" Sam sighed, "Really?"

"What!" He asked innocently, "I barely made it through lunch!"

"You ate two pulled pork sandwiches." Danny laughed.

"Exactly!"

"And you had a side of mashed potatoes."

"Very true."

"And you're still hungry."

"Yes! I don't know why you guys always get so surprised."

Danny shook his head, "Oh, I'm not surprised, that shock wore off when we were in 4th grade." In response Tucker flipped him off making Danny laugh.

"If you two are done, you need to come check out this basement!" Sam yelled catching them both off guard.

They looked around and realized that her and Dora were no longer standing in with them and a door on the other side of the kitchen table was open.

"Well, she didn't waste any time at all." Tucker said as they moved through the door and down the stairs that met them right away.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs they were met with an excruciatingly huge basement. To the left of the stairs looked to be a workout area and to the right of the stairs they found Sam and Dora in what looked to be a close replica of the Fenton Works basement but without the portal.

"Wow." Danny gazed at the lab in front of him, slowly taking the last step off the stairs and into the lab. "This… is more amazing than the kitchen." Danny couldn't believe that he had his own lab. A place to study the things he found in the Ghost Zone. A place to study himself without worrying about Maddie and Jack. A place he didn't have to be distressed about Maddie and Jack worrying about him handling the equipment of the lab.

Tucker let out a loud whistle behind him, "Damn." He made his way over to the four computer screens that were set up along the far wall where in the lab at Fenton Works was the Ghost Portal. "These are _nice_. I am _really_ loving this place so far!"

"We'll have to update the systems and upload all of our files into these computers when we come back; that way we have another place for everything. I'll even make sure to grab all of the old journals and put them here instead so we don't have to worry about someone finding them anymore."

"Sweet. Maybe now we can start copying them into the computer. Hey Danny, do you think you could think up a scanner and it would appear?"

"Uh, maybe." He shrugged and pictured a scanner in his mind.

"Tucker, I don't think it works like the Room of Requirement." Sam rolled her eyes.

Next to the wall of computers suddenly popped up a scanner on top of the table that held the keyboards. Tucker turned around to smirk at Sam, ignoring everyone's shocked faces.

"I beg to differ."

"Holy shit." Sam and Danny harmonized.

"Maybe we should continue to the other side of the room." Dora said after a few seconds of silence.

"Oh, yeah." Sam mentally shook her head to clear her mind and moved towards the other half of the basement. "So we have a lab and a workout area."

"Looks pretty decked out too." Danny commented.

One wall held weights as well as a bench press and deadlift bars. The entire floor was covered in a black matt, making it soft to walk on, yet firm. To one side there hung two punching bags and two treadmills. Weight balls and dumbbells were lined up closest to the weight lifting equipment.

"Talk about personal gym." Danny murmured.

"I wonder if there's a way to make a training course…" Sam mused aloud to herself, walking further into the room. Inspecting the equipment with intense curiosity was, Dora. She was intensely intrigued by the items – having not seen them before – and was quite fascinated in what they were.

"Maybe." Danny shrugged, watching Sam as she moved around the room, inspecting the pieces.

"I wonder…" She contemplated and stood still, looking at the bare wall on the opposite side of the weights.

Danny was hit with a sudden bout of forced concentration and images flew in his head of what looked to be an advanced version of training courses they already used. "Sam?" He spoke aloud, unsure if he spoke through the link if it would make the headache he was now sporting, worse.

"Shh, I'm trying to make a course for us."

She had her eyes focused on the wall, watching as it moved back away from her, creating a large room and a counsel with a computer screen appeared two feet in front of her. "This place is cooler than anything I've ever seen." She finished the last obstacle course in her mind, then walked over to the panel. Danny sighed with relief as the headache and the images of obstacle courses no longer flowed through his mind.

"Did it work?" He questioned, opening his eyes and met Dora over by Sam.

"I think so," She smiled. "Let's try it."

She tapped the screen on the stand that was in front of her and it came to life. The background was white but the obstacle courses were listed with pictures. She chose the first one that appeared. When she pressed it, golden colored light appeared in the new section of the room in front of Sam, moving quickly to create a basic obstacle course; one that they first used when Danny was still learning how to use his powers.

Hoops and walls and bars and beams appeared. Danny walked into the room as the golden light beams created the course, he was interested in how solid the objects that the golden light made would be. He reached out and touched a wall and it felt solid against his palm, he laid both hands against it and leaned into the golden, shimmering wall, but it didn't budge; it felt just as solid as concrete.

"Wow! It's solid!" Danny looked back at Sam, who smirked at him. "How many of these things are in the system?"

"I was only able to think of 11 courses, so that's it for now. But I'm sure we could get a few more in here."

"We'll have to come back and play around with it." Danny agreed and moved back towards Sam and Dora.

"This is quite the incredible establishment. I am still quite amazed at what technology is able to do and by it all I've seen a great display of it here." Dora looked upon the shimmering golden walls and beams with amazement.

"We'll get your kingdom caught up eventually, Dora. No worries." Tucker appeared by the stairs. "I was gonna head upstairs to check and see if there were any bedrooms.

"We'll come with." Sam said. She pressed the red 'x' on the left top corner of the screen and the golden obstacle course disappeared. "You'll have to try this puppy out, Tuck, when we come back."

"Uh… you sure?" He looked at her nervously and Danny laughed loudly, hugging his stomach.

Sam rolled her eyes and brushed past the two boys, "Really? You're _still_ not used to my workout regimens?"

"No!" Tucker exclaimed, following her with Danny and Dora taking up the rear. "Tell her Danny!"

"Hey, I'm just making sure that whenever the next big disaster comes that we won't _die_."

"But it's so hard." Tucker whined once they made it to the kitchen. Danny let Dora go through the door before closing it and heading towards the family room where the stairs to go up were located.

"They're not going to get into a full argument now, are they?" Dora questioned tentatively as they followed the pair.

"Probably." Danny shrugged, "But it wouldn't be the first time they fought over something so small. See as where me and Tucker mesh really well, Sam and Tucker hit heads a lot. Doesn't mean they don't love each other, but it _does_ make for some interesting days."

"I see. I've only seen them argue a few times. I was unaware that this was merely a daily occurrence."

Danny chuckled, "More like an every _hour_ thing, actually. But that's just who they are. Honestly if they _weren't_ arguing over something _then_ we'd have to be worried."

"There are four bedrooms." Danny heard Sam say once they had reached the landing. Danny looked down the right and left side of the hallway and realized that she was correct. Two doors were located in both the left hallway and the right hallway.

"I wonder whose bedroom is whose?" Tucker thought aloud.

"Let's just open a door and find out." Danny walked down the right hallway and reached the handle of the door. Tucker followed him and chose the other door while Sam and Dora took the two doors down the left hallway. "We'll open on 3, just to keep it interesting. 1-2-3."

Danny opened his door and he instantly knew this was his own room.

"This one is mine!" The trio called out together. They pulled back out of their rooms to look at the other with confusion.

"The room I'm in is very plain." Dora responded after the group.

"Maybe this place made it when we touched the door or something, making it our own rooms no matter which door we opened." Danny guessed, then walked into his room.

It was decked out in a way he'd always dreamed about. Making it much better than his room at home.

His bed was queen sized with a black comforter and bright blue sheets that matched the pillows. The walls and ceilings were covered in a constant picture of a purple and blue galaxy, making the room seem brighter at the points that blared white on the galaxy ceiling. A lamp shaped like a moon hung on one side of the room from opposite from Danny and what appeared to be a cabinet with glass shelves with glass doors was also placed near the light moon. He wasn't sure why the room had this feature and he didn't know yet what he'd put in it, but he would find something.

On the same wall as the glass case was a door that led to the closest; though it was small it was a walk-in that was still bigger than the one at home. A dresser was located inside as well. He walked back out and into the bathroom located on the same wall as the bed. He was surprised to see that the walls were covered in a dark blue and on the ceiling were stars that he made out to be in small versions of the constellations. He turned off the lights in the bathroom and was pleased to find that they glowed in the dark.

He left his room and walked over towards Tucker's open door. "How's your room look, Tucker?"

"Awesome!" Tucker responded.

Danny had to admit it was pretty cool. Any superhero you could think of had their own picture on the wall to Danny's left, though it was broken up slightly by the large TV set up. In front of the TV was two gaming chairs. Behind that on the opposite wall stood the bed with a simple grey comforter, Navy blue sheets and pillows. Around the bed were pictures of Tucker's favorite movies ranging from the gory 'Dead Teacher' series to the Notebook.

Danny found Tucker on the opposite side of the room where he sat at a long desk with three large computer screens. "This is pretty cool. What are you doing with the computers?"

"Figuring out all the things I'll need to get them set up and running normal." He told Danny absentmindedly. "This room is so cool! It's like everything I wanted – though not quite everything – and it's all set up. How's your room, dude?"

"My walls look like I'm in a galaxy."

"Sweet!"

"Yeah, it totally is. Do you have a bathroom and closet in here too?"

"Yep." He pointed to the two doors on the opposite sides of the desk. "Do you?"

"Yeah. And there's stars like I have at home on the ceiling in constellations."

Tucker let out a whistle, "Mine's pretty basic I guess. I don't know, all I really cared about was what my room looked like."

Danny chuckled, "Well it shows. I love the superhero wall."

"I think that's my favorite." Tucker smiled at him before going back to making a list on his PDA. "Have you checked out Sam's room?"

"No, but I was gonna go there next. Wanna come?"

"Naw, that's okay. I think it'll creep me out too much anyway." He chuckled. "Just let me know if there's any torture devices."

"Or I don't, and Sam can spring them on ya."

Danny laughed at Tucker's pouted face, "Not cool, dude! You know she'll test 'em out on me first!"

"No worries, I'll bring the video camera to make sure there's proof."

"Keep saying that and I'll suck you into the thermos and leave you in there for hours again."

"I'll keep that in mind." Danny chuckled then walked out, ignoring the fact that Tucker was giving him the finger, and walked past the stairs to Sam's room.

He was immediately met with a room darker than the one in her home, but he couldn't get the sense out of his mind that this was just so Sam.

The walls were a deep dark purple. In the middle was an ornate chandelier that cast the only light into the room. The bed was laid out to his left in a nook all itself. It was a canopy bed with black gossamer curtains gathered at each post. The bed itself held a black comforter with an intricate floral pattern in purple in the center and deep purple sheets. Her floors were the same dark hardwood as his and Tucker's rooms, but hers held an intricate black and white rug.

There were two doors on the opposite sides of her bed and he could see the bathroom through the door closest to him. The walls were the same color and there were two black lamps on the far wall and another chandelier type light fixture overhead. But everything else was white. There was a large claw foot tub and a shower in the corner. But the floor matched everything in white. Danny was quite shocked to find this so blinding compared to the bedroom.

On the other side of the room sat a black desk, though that was it. No chair, lamp or anything. On the opposite side of the room from himself he found Sam and Dora.

Dora was sitting in one of the damask reading chairs with a large empty bookshelf behind her. Sam was sat down at what he found to be a drawing desk. She currently had her sketch book out – she always carried it in her backpack – and was moving a pencil easily across the paper.

"Nice set up you've got in here." Danny stood to the side of Sam.

"I love it! It's not _everything_ I've wanted in my room but I can add things to make it more like my dream room."

"The bathroom kind of shocked me."

"Me too." She glanced up at him as she finished some details on her drawings of Dora. "But I really like it."

"The room I looked into was not this intricate. It was very simple. There was a bed and a desk with a chair and a light overhead to see, but that was all there was."

"Maybe it's a sort of 'guest bedroom' or something." Danny shrugged his shoulders.

"Possibly. But who else besides Jazz would be our guest?" Sam questioned.

"I don't know. Just a thought."

"I guess we'll figure out some use. How's Tucker liking his room? Is it all geeked out?"

"You're gonna love it." Danny chuckled when Sam curled up her nose. "Not even kidding. Though you may want to play out your room a bit. He thinks you have a torture chamber in here."

"Ha! If I was going to have a torture chamber in my room it wouldn't be for the purpose he's thinking of."

Danny felt a blush rise to his cheeks and focused on keeping his mind separated from Sam's. But before he cold retort back to Sam's smirking face, Dora spoke up,

"What other reason would a torture chamber provide except to torture someone?"

Danny and Sam quickly locked eyes, a bit of panic shown in them. _'You're telling her! I'm out!'_ Then Danny said aloud, "Good luck! I'm gonna go hang with Tucker."

"Danny!" Sam called, but he was already gone.

They didn't spend much time in the house after that. Tucker and Danny worked on the TV that was hooked up and found that it played TV Shows from the human world once the box was hooked up correctly. The channels were different from any they'd seen before, but they were able to figure it out. When it was late enough they headed out; Dora flew off in one direction after hugging them good-bye, and the trio headed in another after looking up where they were on the map on Tucker's PDA and found the Fenton Portal was south of their position.

* * *

 **October 11th, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **Marley's Fiercest**

 **6:30 p.m.**

Sam was ecstatic and extremely nervous for the day. Today was the day of her first Showcase, a first step towards selling her art, to standing on her own feet. She knew that what happened tonight might not make or break her small career. But she knew if things didn't go at least a little bit well, then trying to sell her art would become increasingly harder as time went.

She currently stood with the other four artists that were showcasing tonight as well. They were being introduced to the group of people in attendance. She had her small speech prepared to describe the idea behind her own work and had it cut down to a minute and half. She looked out into the crowd, quickly spotting Danny, Tucker and Jazz and sadly Charlie.

That morning when she was packing up to go down to Springfield, she was incredibly pissed when she went downstairs to find Charlie in the foyer speaking with her parents. They were quick to inform her that he would be attending the Art Show tonight to support her. She had wanted to say 'no', but she didn't have enough energy to put into arguing, it was all going into making sure she was ready to go.

On the way down, they drove together and Sam was happy when Danny called shotgun so she didn't have to worry about him and Charlie in the back. She knew Tucker could crack easily, but Danny didn't hold a candle to Tucker's patience when it came to this. She actually had hoped her grandma could have come. She had planned on coming, but that morning when she woke up it had started off as a bad day. Sam told her that Tucker would get videos and pictures and she would call and tell her all about it as soon as it was over. She knew Ida was sad and disappointed that she couldn't go, but Sam would rather see her taking it easy than push herself when she had bad days when her arthritis and back acted up.

Her parents on the other hand did not plan on coming at all. They told her good luck, but Sam knew that they didn't exactly believe in her. But that was okay with Sam. She didn't think she could handle both her parents _and Charlie_ when the day was supposed to be about her and her art.

But she was happy that Jazz had been able to make it up for the first show. She wasn't as dressed up as everyone else but it didn't matter to Sam, she only cared that she had been able to take time out of her hectic school life and now work schedule to be there for her.

' _Nervous?'_

' _About speaking? Nope.'_ She found him again and locked eyes with his piercing blue. He looked incredibly handsome tonight, wearing navy blue chinos Jazz had made him get a few months ago, a light, almost white, blue long sleeved button down with the sleeves rolled up, a brown leather belt and a pair of brown brogues that Sam herself had gotten him for Christmas last year when she realized his old dress shoes were pretty beat up. She had gotten Tucker his own pair as well.

' _I hate that Charlie's here.'_

' _Me as well. You look gorgeous by the way, have I told you that?'_

Sam blushed, and heard the first artist be called up. _'Like every minute for the past hour.'_

' _Well, I wouldn't have said anything until later but your thoughts about how good_ I looked _made me want to compliment you again.'_

' _I told you those shoes looked good on you.'_

She herself wore a deep burgundy bell skirt that ended just before her knees, a black sleeveless chiffon blouse and black open-toed sandaled heels.

' _Yeah, yeah you should just be happy we dressed ourselves.'_

' _What you needed help?'_ She smirked at him.

' _No! I mean… I hate you.'_ She snickered in her mind and Danny mentally flipped her off.

"Sam Manson." Christian Marley Coe, the owner of the Gallery called her up. The group tossed her a thumbs-up from each of them as the crowd clapped politely and Sam took the stand.

"Hello everyone." She looked out at the crowd, not needing a card to read from as the two other artists had done. "Tonight I have brought in my works that range from pencil and charcoal drawings to oil paintings. The oil paintings are more colorful and vibrant, giving into the happier and uplifting sides of life with an undertone of a reality that's waiting for the brightness to come down. The charcoal drawings pull out a darker side to the world, giving the remembrance that a little bad needs to happen to show you what is good. And lastly my pencil and colored penciled drawn art comes from things I see on a day to day basis among items I find beautiful and needs to be distributed into art for everyone to see. These typically follow a relatively easy-going mood, but can take you back in your own memories of growing up or walking along a street and soaking in the world as it passes." She gave a small nod as she finished, "Thank you for allowing me to share my experiences with you all here." And with that she moved away from the microphone to stand in line by the artists again.

She looked at her friends and Charlie to see them clapping the loudest and smiling brightly at her. Charlie wasn't as ecstatic as the others and Sam was grateful that he wasn't trying to overplay his part.

' _That went great, love!'_

' _You've been watching too many British TV Shows.'_ Sam chuckled.

' _That you started us on.'_

' _Please, it was all Tucker's doing.'_

Danny leaned over and spoke in Tucker's ear. _'He says: "You suck! You can't blame it on me when you two are talking all freaky" that's a direct quote by the way.'_

' _Like he wasn't the one that made us start watching Downton Abbey.'_

She saw Danny chuckle and repeat to Tucker what she said. Jazz leaned over and quickly shushed the two and Sam had to hold in a chuckle. _'I see you got in trouble with mom.'_

' _Tucker started it.'_ Tucker himself glared at Danny as he spoke in his ear. Sam suspected it was about what he just said. Jazz still held a watchful eye over them.

"Please, everyone enjoy the works tonight." Christian Marley Coe ended the speech. Everyone clapped before moving about and other conversations filled the air. Sam took a step off the small stage along with the other artists and made her way back to her family and Charlie.

"That was amazing how you described your art up there. I'm excited to see all the pieces you brought today." Was the first thing out of Charlie's mouth when Sam reached them.

"Um, thanks Charlie."

"So where do we begin this shindig?" Tucker rubbed his hands together excitedly and Jazz rolled her eyes.

"Anywhere really. But mines' in the back between Greg with the crazy red hair and then some other pieces are just scattered about. But I want you guys to keep a look out. Let me know what people are saying. And if they're really, really interested, get me over there after playing it up so I can get their information and hopefully give them my card and get a sale out of it."

"Aye aye, Captain." Danny and Tucker smirked. They both stepped forward and kissed her on her cheeks before heading off to scope out the people.

"Good thing we love 'em." Jazz shook her head. "No worries though," She placed a hand on Sam's shoulder. "I'll keep an eye on them."

"Thank you. Sometimes they act like 12-year olds too much."

Jazz laughed and pulled her into a half hug, "Good thing we're there to kick them into shape again."

Sam chuckled, "Go, before they mess something up." Jazz gave her one more squeeze before heading off in the boys' direction.

"I guess it's just you and me." Charlie smiled his blinding white teeth at her.

"I guess it is." Charlie offered his arm and Sam took it slowly, wishing it was Danny instead.

' _If he tries anything we're going to have a problem.'_

' _If he tries anything, you're going to cool your jets and let me handle it.'_

' _Fine.'_ He sighed, and then closed their constant connection to where they could still feel each other but wouldn't be intruding.

For most of the night, Sam kept her focus on the different people that were interested in her artworks. Danny, Tucker and Jazz kept her well informed on what people were saying about her own art. Some things were bad, but most of what people had to say were good and positive.

Many of the people she spoke to had given her their personal information when they discussed her artwork to her. She was grateful that this whole thing was going so well. Two people had already bought three pieces of her artwork and would pick them up and pay for them after the showing was over.

Her phone buzzed in her hand and looked down to see a quick text from Jazz informing her that she just sent a woman her way that was incredibly interested in her pieces. Sam looked up, a smile slowly forming on her face, to look for a woman coming towards her.

"What did they say?" Charlie asked from his position next to her, but she ignored him.

An older woman dressed in a lace, dark blue dress, a black leather jack and white heels was making her way towards her and Sam knew this had to be her and she absolutely loved the woman's style. "Miss Manson?" The woman called, waving as she approached Sam and Charlie, making her way through a small group of people.

"Hi." Sam pulled her arm out from where Charlie still had it secured with his own. "How are you enjoying tonight?" She reached out her hand and shook the older woman's hand when she finally reached her.

"Oh, I just love these beginner art exhibitions." She flipped her long red hair over one shoulder. "But how are you my dear?" Nerves left you yet?" She made sure to lock her bright green eyes with Sam's lilac ones.

Sam chuckled. This woman already seemed like someone she could be friends with. "I'm doing a lot better than when I first got here." They dropped their shaken hands but still stood close to the other. Charlie tried to reach for her hand again, but Sam placed in on her hip.

"Good, good. I'm sorry, I haven't introduced myself. I'm Mrs. Alice Oakstone, but you can call me Ali."

"It's very nice to meet you Ali."

The corners of Ali's eyes crinkled as her smiled widened, then turned her eyes to Charlie. "And you are young man?"

"Charles Wellingswood the fifth." Charlie smiled at Ali, reached for her hand and kissed the back of it before letting it go. "I'm Sam's boyfriend."

Sam twitched at the name and felt her smile fall. He just couldn't have said friend. Now it'll be everywhere in the Chicago gossip circle more so than before.

Ali chuckled, "Aren't you just the charmer. Are you from the Wellingswood family of Steel, by chance?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good Lad! Now, how about you get us a couple of drinks, hmm? I'm quite parched and I'm sure Sam has not gotten a break long enough to enjoy herself."

Sam watched the shock cross Charlie's face but he quickly rearranged his features into the cool, smiling face once again. "Of course, Mrs. Oakstone." He turned towards Sam and leaned down to peck her cheek, which made her annoyance with him flare up higher before heading off to find them drinks.

"Arranged?" Ali asked once he was out of ear shot, her smile replaced with a frown of concern.

"Um, yeah. I mean, yes." Sam nodded.

"Oh, you poor dear." She patted Sam's cheek lightly. "I could see it in the way you act towards the other. When is the date set?"

"May 2016. A year and seven months."

"And there is no way to work your way out of it?" Ali began moving them along the painting and sculptures as they talked. There was something about this woman that reminded Sam of her own grandmother, but she was unsure of what that was yet. But she felt as though she could already trust her.

"Me and my grandma have tried to work with my parents but they threated to send me away to England for school and would change the wedding day to just after I turn 18 in August."

"They sound like real dirt-bags."

Sam chuckled and shook her head, "Not quite the word I'd use, but yes."

"Eh. To-ma-to, to-mah-to. Now that we've gotten that boy out of the way, let's talk about your wonderful art."

"You think it's wonderful?" That had not been a word she thought would come up when discussing her art.

"Oh yes! I would love to buy more, however my husband and I did agree on a budget – you see I love to shop – and well, I'm only able to take a few pieces if they are not already taken."

"Which… which pieces were you most interested in?" This couldn't be happening. No way! Her agent told her this never happened. Or at least it was a rare occurrence.

"I'm interested in about nine pieces so bear with me." Ali laughed lightly and looped her arm through Sam's as they kept moving about.

"Shoot."

"The oil painting you have of the purple lily, both of the oil and charcoal pieces of that classy dinner party where you introduced the two sides, the naked woman folded in on herself, as well as the darkened forest you made with charcoal. Your penciled drawings are quite fantastic and the detail you give is refreshing to what many people today do. I do believe my favorite is the depiction of death creeping up among the group of friends. The detail you gave to the four of them is quite intriguing. But the others are quite fascinating as well: The drawing of the kissing lips, the girl with her dragon and the beautiful towering castle."

"All of those except for the Forest are open for the taking."

"Perfect!" Ali squeezed her arm. "You will do great one day, I can just see it. There are plenty of other people out in the world; just like me."

"Thank you. That's really nice of you to say."

"No worries, my dear." She turned to look at her, her smile crinkling the edges of her eyes. They locked with Sam's quickly before glancing a bit lower. "My, that is beautiful. Where did you get it?"

Sam looked down at her chest to see what Ali was looking at and realized that the moon and star necklace Danny had given her was showing. "Oh, my boy… my _friend_ , Danny made it. It's glass."

Ali arched a brow at Sam's hiccup but did not mention it. "He's very talented. Does he make things for other people as well?"

"Not yet, but he's looking into it. He's here actually, if you'd like to meet him."

"Oh, yes. I'd love to hear what his plans were for something so beautiful."

Sam opened the link, searching for Danny and found that he stood a couple yards away from them behind a couple of walls that accented the middle of the showing area. "He should be this way." Sam gestured towards their left and led Ali to him.

"Sam!" Danny greeted her excitedly; a happy smile on his face. "I'm so proud of you." He reached over and pulled her into a tight hug. Sometimes she hated that the Fenton's were such openly affectionate people. But sometimes she also just liked receiving a Danny hug – though not in public. "Everything is going so well and I even spoke with your agent."

"Hold up there, champ. I want to introduce you to someone first." She gestured to the side at Ali. "This here is Ali Oakstone and she is very interested in both of our art."

"Both?" Danny's brows furrowed, "But I'm not showcasing any art."

"The glass pendent you made me." Sam implied what she said by fingering the cool piece between her fingers.

His eyes widened, "Oh! Oh, yeah." He turned to smile at Ali. "You like it?"

"It's very beautiful. And you've now spoken with an agent? That means you'll be on your way into the art world?"

"I hope so."

"What did she say?" Sam gestured for them to move toward an empty space on the wall, so they wouldn't be in the other people's way. "Something good I hope."

Danny smiled, "Yeah, she told me that once I produced a few things that she'll take a look and try to figure out what course of action would be best for me. Either going solo or joining you on your own art journey." He slid an arm around Sam's waist, pulling her close to him.

' _As much as I'd love to have you keep your arm around me, you know we can't show affection out in public.'_

Danny quickly released her, conveying his shock easily. _'Sorry, I kind of got caught up.'_

' _We just need to be more careful.'_

"I'm sure you'd do well if you did this without an agent. Would you only do the pendants or would you be interested in doing something larger; such as ice sculptures?"

"But they're not ice." Danny quickly wanted to reassure her.

"Of course not." Ali agreed, "But the way your glass is made, it looks very close to ice and if it doesn't melt, you could do very well in the party business if you are interested in making larger pieces."

"I don't know. I haven't exactly experimented."

"Experimented with what?" Charlie asked, appearing in their small group with two drinks in his hand.

"This young man's creativeness in glass artwork."

Charlie looked at Danny in shock after handing Ali and Sam their drinks. "You make things with glass? I didn't know you could do that."

Danny smirked, keeping close to Sam, making sure Charlie wasn't coming any closer. "There's a lot of things you don't know about me." Charlie nodded in understanding, but Sam knew that the darker undertone of his voice – that no one would notice unless they really knew Danny – was meant to be a warning to back the fuck off.

"Well, I look forward to see what you produce, Danny." Ali reached a hand out and Danny followed, shaking her hand firmly before letting go. "And it was nice to meet you Charlie." Ali smiled at him and gave him a slight nod.

"As you, Mrs. Oakstone." He smiled tentatively back at her.

"And Sam, I'll see you later tonight to pay and pick up the pieces?" Ali turned a wide smile to her.

Sam nodded reassuringly, "Yes. It'll be on the backside of the building."

"Perfect." She reached out and shook Sam's hand as well. "I'll see you all then. Oh," Ali's eyes shifted from Sam to Danny to Charlie quickly before landing back on Sam, a smirk pulling slightly at the corner of her smile, "I just wanted to say that you both make a wonderful couple."

"Thank you." Charlie responded in kind, but Ali kept her gaze locked with Sam's.

"Yes, thank you."Sam nodded to Ali, her own smirk appearing on her face. _'We're really going to have to work better on how we act.'_ And with that Ali made her way across the floor towards a group of women that Sam figure were her friends that she came with.

' _I'll say. If a complete stranger can figure it out, then we are not doing this right.'_

' _Well it didn't quite help with you putting your arm around my waist.'_

"She seemed quite nice." Charlie said, completely oblivious to what Sam and Danny were doing.

' _Not like you haven't been trying to sneak peeks at me all night.'_

' _Yeah, but that was subtle.'_ Sam rolled her eyes. "Yes, she was. And she bought quite a few items from me."

' _Apparently not subtle enough. Well, it's not like it could get any worse today.'_ Danny shrugged and took a drink from his own glass of soda. "I'll see you later, I'm gonna go find Tuck and Jazz."

Sam sighed, "See ya."

"Bye, Danny." Charlie waved at him, but Danny was already turned around. "You never told me that he was into the art thing too."

Sam looked up at Charlie to see him already looking down at her, a frown was barley showing on his lips. "Yeah, he's been working with glass for a while now." She looked away and spotted the owner of the gallery a few feet away, finishing up a conversation with one of the other artist. "Come on, I wanna go speak with Mr. Coe."

The rest of the night was fairly uneventful. Danny and Sam made sure to steer clear of the other, just to try and placate their thoughts about their true closeness. At the end of the night, most of Sam's artwork had been sold – making them all quite excited over this achievement. Her agent informed her that this would most likely not happen again, and it was extremely rare for a beginning artist to see so many pieces at their first showing. But despite this, they were all ready to celebrate over this achievement. Even though Jazz left early in the night, Danny and Tucker made plans to take her out sometime next weekend to celebrate.

* * *

 **October 12th, 2014**

 **Sunday**

 **Manson Mansion – Sam's Room**

 **4:25 p.m.**

"Wow! This is so intricate!" Tucker said excitedly.

"Yeah, Sam, this tattoo is tight." Danny agreed tiredly, though he tried to put as much excitement in his voice to show how much he liked her newest tattoo.

They were currently in Sam's room, sitting on her bed, going over the details of the new blood blossom and vine tattoo she had gotten. She had her shirt pulled up to the edge of her breast so they could see the red and green design easily.

"Well it better be. It took her almost six hours to get them just right and have the vine wrap around me."

The lime green vine stretched from just under her left breast and flowed in elaborate circles up to the underside of her arm before flowing down her side; stopping a few inches from the bottom of her bra. A few leaves held a place marker among the vine, but the popping piece of the tattoo were the 5 bold red blood blossoms. They looked very similar to roses when in bloom, which helped disguising Sam's true intentions for the piece. One was placed just to the left of her breast, two flowed under her arm in the area where her bra strap would lay and the rest continued down the side of her ribs.

"It looks damn awesome." Tucker said excitedly, "I wish I could have been there to see it done."

Danny yawned and laid back on Sam's comforter, resting his head on Sam's thigh, "Like you wouldn't have passed out anyway."

"So! Something like this would have been worth it." He reached out to touch it but Sam slapped his hand away from her ribs.

"Don't touch."

"Does it hurt still?" Danny asked.

"Yeah, Danny said that it was getting really painful." Tucker jumped in.

"Yeah, it hurts still, but I got a long tattoo done on a very sensitive area so I was expecting it. Sorry if some of the pain transferred to you." Sam ran a hand through Danny's hair. He closed his eyes contently and let out a long sigh.

He had had a long night and day.

When they had gotten back from Springfield he had 'checked in' with Maddie and Jack – who were up late watching a movie together on the couch – before he headed out through his window to perform patrol. He had actually expected an easy night considering the whole fiasco with the GIW was news everywhere in the Ghost Zone, but that wasn't even close to what happened. Thankfully though not too many of the ghosts that were out, were any powerhouses that he had to worry about. And even though it was late into the night, Danny still had to worry about the reporters following him and other people trying to follow him around. It didn't make his job any easier.

Sam had been adamant through their link about helping him out, but Danny told her not to and when it was early enough he called Tucker to come and help. He hadn't wanted her to get worn out before she spent hours in a chair to get her tattoo. And because she didn't want to cancel on Marie on such short notice, Sam decided to stay home, but told him that if he ran into any worse trouble to give her a call.

It took them a few hours into the day, but Danny and Tucker were finally able to recapture all the escaped ghosts and had them safely back in the Zone. Afterwards they had made their way to Sam's to check in on her and see her tattoo.

"It's okay. With what I've put you through, it's only fair." Danny replied with his eyes still closed.

"Don't say that!" "Danny!" Sam and Tucker yelled at him respectively.

He only shrugged in response and Sam and Tucker shared knowing looks. They knew he could get like that, but they also knew that it was apparently an issue they needed to bring up again.

"How about you just go ahead and take a nap, yeah?" Tucker suggested pulling away from his fascination with Sam's tattoo and laid down on one of her pillows, "I'm definitely in need of one."

"That does sound really nice." Danny mumbled and snuggled into Sam's thigh for a better position, his breathing quickly evened out and Sam and Tucker didn't have to wait more than a minute for him to fall asleep. Tucker followed soon after and Sam kept watch over her boys.

During school on Monday things were relatively back to normal. However, the one difference to the day was the constant stream of conversation over Danny's interview and the idea of Ghost Rights.

From the geeks to the regulars to the populars, words of what ghosts should have for rights wouldn't stop. The trio kept quiet most of the day, staying clear of said topic even when Dash, Paulina, Star or the other jocks would try to bully an answer out of them. Topics of ghost rights were even being discussed in their U.S. History course. It wasn't much but team Phantom was fairly happy that after almost a week, people were still on the good side of all this.

The only two people in the school who weren't all about ghost rights was Valerie and Agent Z – who made it very clear in that days lesson.

"Now I know that I said we would start on learning self-defense against ghost this week. I have decided that we will be starting on Thursday instead. Due to recent circumstances I feel it is best to go over the more powerful ghosts that have been in Amity Park as well as the ghosts that cause the most terror to remind you that just because a ghost may act human, does not mean they follow the same mindset as us."

Valerie quickly raised her hand as the other students protested loudly over the fact that they were now getting lectured instead of a fun fighting class.

"Quiet down. There's no reason to get so caught up. We'll be able to stay on track of our syllabus and we'll be starting on Thursday. Calm down." Agent Z waited for the chatter to die down before turning to Valerie, "Yes, Miss. Gray?"

"Will we be discussing Phantom's destruction to the city as well?" This question got a rise out of the class again, many of the students hurled insults at Valerie for 'siding with them' but she didn't look their way. The trio felt bad for Valerie but they knew what it was like to be on that bad side and sometimes you just had to take those insults and turn them around to benefit her.

"Not till Wednesday. Reminding everyone about the natural hostility of ghosts before going over the deeds of Phantom and beginning our defense classes will make it most beneficial when faced with a ghost in real time."

The trio scoffed at the stupid remark. Because no matter what they should learn defense – well, the people who would rather run towards a ghost than away from it.

"Now, we will start with a basic powerhouse in the Ghost Zone; Undergrowth."

For the trio and Valerie it was a very boring class period as discussions arose over Undergrowth, and Nocturne. The information provided was very basic knowledge to them and they actually knew more of what they'd each done than Agent Z, but Valerie and the trio kept that information to themselves. Valerie hadn't been sure if she should mention the few facts of each ghost that were not mentioned but she decided to not say anything believing that Agent Z kept certain knowledge from the class for a specific reason.

The night passed barely uneventfully. Danny, Tucker and Sam had a run in with Valerie while out on patrol as well as the News Stations. But they were able to evade them enough to get the job done. The trio spent the rest of that night studying for the tests they would have the next day in English, Math and Science and for their tests on Wednesday in U.S. history and Sam's Mythology class.

Tuesday fell just as boring as Monday for the trio but surprisingly there were signs now posted around Casper High giving notice that starting at the end of October there would be a Ghost Relations Club formed and if anyone wanted to sign-up they would need to go to the front office to put down their name.

"If we do sign up for that group it will help us get a better feel for what everyone thinks about ghosts." Tucker said as they entered through Danny's front door. It was just after school that day and thankfully there was no ghost at that moment terrorizing the town and Danny was thankful to get a nice break from things for at least an hour or so.

"True but we still would have to explain our investment in the club. Maybe it should just be you and Danny, if I go there's going to be too many questions and I do not want something like this last week or so to happen again." Sam grumbled as she moved into the kitchen while Danny closed the front door.

Maddie currently sat at the kitchen table with a magazine laid out in front of her and a mug of coffee at her side, "Hi, kids! How was school today?"

Tucker jumped a bit in surprise, having not seen her unlike Sam, but answered for the group because Sam and Danny weren't even looking towards her.

"It was good. Kinda boring." He shrugged, Danny handed him a soda and a bag of chips.

"That's good. Sometimes it's best to have a boring day." She smiled at them, but the trio kept their eyes on what they were doing.

"Okay, let's go we've got everything." Danny said and steered them out of the room.

Maddie let out a sigh as she watched them walk across the living room, then head up the stairs. She knew that teenagers could get touchy about things but she had hoped they'd all be over Phantom overshadowing Sam by now. She let out another sigh after taking a drink from her coffee and went back to her magazine.

"Well that wasn't awkward." Tucker mumbled halfway up the stairs.

"At least you answered her. It probably could have been a lot worse." Danny shrugged his shoulders.

"Doesn't make it any less awkward." Tucker amended.

"True." Danny shrugged once more. "Anyway, back to what we were really talking about."

"Right," Sam opened the door to Danny's room, looking at her pile of grapes, water and almonds to make sure they didn't fall. "If it's just you and Tucker than we don't' have to worry about anymore rumors about me with Phantom. At least for a while."

"It's about time you three got here!" A familiar voice trilled from the middle of the room.

The trio gasped in shock, eyes wide as they took in the sight of a dark haired blue eyed girl, laying back on Danny's bed; a biography of the first woman astronaut, Valentina Tereshkova, in her lap.

"Danielle?"

 **October 14th, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **Danny's Room**

 **3:15 p.m.**

* * *

Oh my gods you guys! I can't believe it's been 2 months! 2! Months! Like what? But I just have to say school was kicking my ass and so was work. But now I'm getting back in the habit of summertime and whatnot. Hopefully I'll be back on schedule. We are officially back to **Sundays**! Yes that's right I'm putting my update day back to **Sunday**! And even if I don't update that Sunday then it'll either be that Monday or it'll be that following Sunday. Yes i know today is Saturday but i finally got this chapter done and i couldn't make you guys wait another day! that would have just been cruel

But besides that I hope you liked this chapter and that the length totally made up for my absence.

 **Thank you to all of my Reviewers from the last chapter! And all the new people who have joined this story!** I promise it's not normally like this!

Please let me know what your favorite part of this chapter was considering there was a whole bunch of sections! I really want to know. That or a phrase or something. And if you can't pick just tell me all of them! Lol

My reasoning for the whole part about Ember and Skulker in this chapter was written that was because I'm pretty sure I could see Ember and Kitty and Spectra complaining out loud while they were in Amity Park about Skulker and Johnny and that's why Sam knows what happened – well Jazz first and then she told Sam.

 **Ghost Language Translated:**

"Well, Tuesday I had an interview to defeat the current rumors about my Phantom side and Sam. The people seem to be on my side now but our problem still remains with the GIW."

"He's right. Yesterday, I had to go in and have them exorcise Danny's ghost from me. Not that he was really overshadowing me, but they still believed that he was. And after that whole fiasco the lead Agent leaned down and whispered in my ear that he knew everything. And the only thing we can think of, is that they know Danny's identity."

"Well, no." "But it's most likely the answer."

"Yes." "We found out that it had been _Vlad_ to take the picture and send it off."

"If we had had some where to go to discuss Sam's situation we could have avoided the whole ordeal."


	30. A New Name

So I added up all my hours and I've calculated that I'm busier now than I was this past semester (Jan to May). Like I work every day I have camps every week and I'm also taking an online Math course (Which I'm actually taking for the third fucking time cuz I suck at math! Though the last two were in an actual classroom).

I am so sorry for the delay in chapters. But I will promise you that I will have chapter 31 up Sunday night! It may be like 2 in the morning. But I will fucking have it up. Not just for you guys but for myself! I know some of you were quite nervous about me abandoning this story and **I Promise on my job and school career that I will never ever ever abandon this story**! But you know what sometimes life just kicks you in the balls.

ANYWAY! Thank you guys so much for your reviews! It means so much to me that after so long of a wait you all were right there with me still! I love you guys so much! **Cutiepie120048, The Talent, AnnoymousPoet, SamXDanny, Mayra58, Blue11msu, Savirox, Rocky Rooster, ShadowDragon357, Guest Georgia, Capitolblonde, DannySamPhantom**

 **Answers to Reviews at bottom: SamXDanny, ShadowDragon357, Guest Georgia, Capitolblonde**

BTW this chapter has not been looked over and I'm pretty sure there's a few mistakes. If there's any that are too huge and annoying, please let me know!

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom. Or the song 'Roots' by Imagine Dragons**

* * *

 **Hell will always come before you grow**

 **Trouble found me, trouble found me**

 **I'm going back to my roots**

 **Another day, another door**

 **Another high, another low**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: A New Name**

 **Word count: 2,487**

 **6/17/16**

* * *

 **October 14th, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **Danny's Room**

 **3:15 p.m.**

"Hey guys." She chirped happily and set the book she was reading on the first female Astronaut on Danny's bedside table. "Though, 'Danielle'? Really?"

The trio laughed and shook their heads before making their way over to her.

"I can't believe you're here." Danny said excitedly, and gathered the 14 year old into a hug.

"Yeah! It's been over eight months since we last saw you! Did you go anywhere cool?" Tucker questioned.

"Let her get settled in Tucker."

Danielle laughed, "Oh, I've missed you guys!" She pulled away from Danny and gave Tucker and Sam hugs – no matter how much Sam protested.

"We've missed you too, Dani." Danny smiled down at her as she let go of Sam.

"Oh!" her eyes went wide. "I haven't gone by Dani for a while now actually." She admitted a bit sheepishly.

"You haven't?" The trio asked simultaneously, making Danielle crack up again.

"Oh, I've _definitely_ missed you guys. But no, I haven't. For oh, I don't know, about six months I guess, I've been going by, Ellie." She shrugged and sat back down on the bed, waiting for them to get over their shock.

"That's really pretty." Danny got over his own shock first and sat down next to her on the bed. Sam and Tucker followed his lead by pulling up a chair.

"What triggered the change?" Sam inquired, from her position next to Ellie on the bed.

"Well, I've been thinking about it since I set out on my own actually. But I was travelling from Poland into Russia when it just hit me that I didn't feel like 'Dani' anymore you know? To me 'Dani' was the old Danielle. The one still under Vlad's influence. Still going back to him. The girl he wanted me to be. So I decided to test out the name 'Elle' when I got to Moscow. But that felt a bit too proper. So when I went up further north to St. Petersburg I tried out, Ellie. And," She shrugged again. "I don't know, it just _felt_ right. A new name for the new me. Someone who's not associated with Plasmius or having to deal with that weight of the name he made."

"Good." Sam gave a sharp nod, voicing both her and Danny's thoughts. "It's a good fit for you too, Ellie."

Ellie's smile brightened the entire room again, "Thanks Sam. That means a lot to me."

"Ellie." Tucker sounded it out, "Hmm, it rolls off the tongue easily enough."

"Thanks Uncle Tuck." She giggled.

"Ooh, are we bringing back old nicknames?" Tucker's excitement was clearly written across his face.

"It rolls off the tongue easy enough." Ellie countered, causing them all to laugh. It felt good to have this little blip of laughter in their lives of the moment; they could practically feel the stress melt away by just having Ellie there with them.

"How long are you staying?" Danny wasn't sure if he wanted her to stay or to go out into the world again. An overprotective side of him wanted her to leave and never come back. Mainly because of the GIW and Vlad. If he could get her as far from them as possible he would. But another part of him – a much more selfish part – never wanted her to leave. Wanted her to stay and he'd watch over her and make sure she was taken care of because he knew that being alone for so long would do nothing but become a hindrance for her. If she was anything like him – and he knew that she was – she would need to be with at least one constant person most of the time or go crazy. And he loved her too much to see her go crazy.

A blush rose to her cheeks and she looked down at her hands that were folded in her lap. "I actually was hoping that I might be able to stay for… forever." She looked back up and locked identical blues eyes with Danny.

A smile slowly spread across Danny's face and a sense of relief washed through him – combining with Sam's. "Of course you can stay! If that's what you really want then we can definitely make it happen." He glanced up at Sam and Tucker to see them nod in agreement.

"We love having you kiddo. It'll be like an extended sleepover." Tucker threw in animatedly.

"Are you guys sure?" Ellie looked at them all a bit nervous still.

"Of course!" Sam placed a hand on her shoulder, "You're part of our family, Ellie. We'll have to work out arrangements for you, but if you want to stay in Amity Park then you'll stay with us."

"Thank you." She reached over and pulled Sam into another hug. "Thank you so much!"

Sam accepted the hug and ignored the smirks on Danny and Tucker's faces. She wrapped her arms around the smaller teen. Sam could tell how much the hug meant to Ellie, a comfort that she hadn't known for so long and a confirmation that she was still welcomed among them. The hug comforted Sam as well, knowing that Ellie would be staying there and she could watch over the younger girl and no longer have to worry about her as she made her way around the world. It felt nice to have her safe in her arms; to know she was truly okay.

"Of course." Sam gave her another tight squeeze before pulling away. "But enough of this, where have you been? What pictures did you get this time?"

"I placed all of my sim cards in a separate bag in my backpack. We'll have to upload them. I have way more than when I visited in February!" She reached over the side of her bed and grabbed her backpack and placed it on her lap.

"Oh yeah?" Tucker questioned as Ellie riffled through her pockets. "What cool places did you see?"

"Um, well I came from Rome actually," She responded happily and pulled a baggie full of SD cards from her bad. "Ah ha! Here they are." She handed them over to Tucker who gladly accepted the large baggie. "I have a few more disposable cameras in here with some pictures but that's all I've got. Anyway," She set her bag back on the ground and got settled comfortably on the bed once more. "Before Rome I was in Greece – Athens to be specific and Crete – and before that I spent some time in Serbia and Romania. Then I went to Russia which I desperately wanted to see after I was in Poland. But before I went to Poland I spent most of my time in the Middle East: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan."

"Were you careful when you were over there? Keeping away from our own soldiers and what not?" Danny asked.

"Actually, I helped out the people who were being attacked. Pulling them out of buildings and making sure that the citizens of wherever I was at were safe from the bombs and the fire fights that were going on. It didn't matter who was attacking – us or them – but I didn't want to let those people, those innocent civilians get in the way of something that wasn't their fault."

"That's really courageous of you, Ellie." Sam said quite proudly along with Danny and Tucker.

"Yeah, squirt that's quite impressive. We're you staying with one family when you were in certain areas or did you bounce around a little bit?" Tucker questioned, concern filling his voice.

"Actually," Ellie bit the left side of her lip and scratched behind her right ear, "I uh, was mainly on the streets when I was over there."

"What!" Danny looked at her appalled, "No one would help you?"

"Well it's not like it's such a shock like it is here." She rolled her eyes, "But when I was in Pakistan for a few weeks I found a nice family that helped me out, but then we were under fire and I had to get them out and then I moved on to the next city."

"Was it like that everywhere you went?" Tucker jumped in before Danny or Sam.

"Well obviously not the fighting. But yeah," She shrugged, "I was on the street most of the time. But a few people helped me out here and there. Got some money at times or free rides. One night when I was in Rome though I scrounged up enough money to sleep in a pretty high end hotel."

"You didn't steal it I hope?" Sam narrowed her eyes at the younger girl.

"Not all of it. But I only stole what I had to. And that was pretty rare anyway." She sighed, "Look I know that stealing is wrong and what not but it wasn't like I was dying or something. You know I would have turned around or called here the first instance I was in some big trouble. I took care of myself. But yeah, half the time I was running around on the streets. But it's not like I haven't been there before. And plus living like that you get to see countries in a whole different light than most do. You're able to appreciate the things you _do have_ a lot more."

"As long as you don't steal at home I think we can all get over it." Danny put his arm around Ellie's shoulders.

She quickly beamed up at him, "No worries! Now," She looked at Tucker and Sam, "what's gone on here? Anything too exciting? Did those popular people finally get what's coming to them?"

"Uh," Danny chuckled a bit lightly and nervously, rubbing the back of his head. "Not exactly. Do you want something to eat or drink? It's kind of a long story."

"Well, if you're offering." She shrugged. "You got any burgers or bacon or something?"

Tucker laughed and got up from his chair. "Oh, yeah we've definitely got bacon."

"I'm sure we can scrounge something up. I went grocery shopping a couple of days ago."

"You did?" Sam and Tucker looked at Danny unsurely.

"Yeah." He nodded and got up from his bed, "It was later Sunday night after I left Sam's. Now come on, we'll get something for everybody going."

When everyone was downstairs and Danny was well onto his way making burgers and a tofu burger for Sam that they began to tell Danielle all that has happened from her last visit. Not much had happened between her February visit and the start of the school year but they told her the basic information all the same. Of course all of the more interesting things started at the beginning of the School year.

They informed her of the schools Ghost 101 class and how it was pretty annoying but they were learning what the GIW actually knew so they kept up with the class. They told her about Chaser and Seraphina. About Sending Jazz off to college and how they're doing their best to pay for her school. Informed her of Aragon attacking Dora once more and the information he has about a new power out in the Zone.

Ellie was roaring when she heard about Dora being attacked because she'd spoken with the ghost princess a few times and she'd never met a nicer person. "Is she okay? How's the kingdom? Where's Aragon?"

"She's doing okay. Him coming back really shook her, but she's definitely okay. The castle is being rebuilt a bit because of the damage that was inflicted, but otherwise that's alright as well. And Aragon is with the Observants. Again." Sam explained.

Ellie wasn't happy to hear about that, just as the trio hadn't been but she wanted to know what else had happened to they continued on in their information.

They explained next about what happened with Danny being captured by the GIW. Ellie went on a loud rampage, getting up from the table and leaving her bacon cheese burger alone and paced back and forth, using her arms to express her hatred for them for what they did to Danny and to Jazz. It took longer than five minutes to settle her down and reassure her that each of them was fine but when she finally did take her seat, she did so with an angry face.

They were able to counter her anger towards the GIW by informing her of Danny and Sam actually becoming a couple and the link they shared again. It took a long while to explain to Ellie about the link but she found it quite intriguing. But she was most excited about them being together. Though she wanted to go punch Sam's parents when she heard about Charlie Wellingswood the fifth. But she was quite pleased that Sam and Danny were keeping their relationship secret. She loved the bracelet and the necklace that they both wore. She was intrigued by the star and moon pendent on Sam's necklace and Danny promised that he would make her one once he figured out the best thing to make.

The last thing they informed her of was the most recent event of Phantom being photographed with Sam. Ellie was once again up and pacing and ranting at many different people. It took much longer for her to calm down than before but eventually she ran out of steam and plopped down in her seat once more.

"Sounds like it's been one hell of a time here."

Danny snorted and leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. "You can say that again."

"We're all on a tight watch as of right now. We don't know what could happen so when we go out we stick together at all times." Tucker updated her on their newest protocols out in the field.

"Okay. Though I think I can do fine by myself. I have a new power actually." She smiled happily.

"You do?" Tucker asked excitedly.

"Well, that doesn't mean you'll go off by yourself." Danny and Sam stated at the same time.

"Is that a link thing?" Ellie looked at them with a smirk.

"Yes." They all groaned.

"Now show us this new power!" Tucker practically bounced in his seat.

"Alright alright. Hold the phone." She got up from her kitchen chair and moved towards the more spacious area in the kitchen. "Now don't freak out." She held up her hands defensively.

"We'll be fine Ellie. Just show us already!" Sam smiled at her.

"Okay." She gave a quick nod then flicked her wrists slightly. Two large balls of blue fire instantly came to life in her palms, making the trio gasp as it reflected in their eyes. "I told you you would freak." She smirked.

 **October 14th, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **Fenton Works: Kitchen**

 **5:00 p.m.**

* * *

Yes I know it was a much shorter chapter than the previous one (Okay it's the shortest out of all of mu chapters) but I figured this was as good a place to stop as any for the moment. I love cliff hangers. But don't worry the next chapter will not have one. I don't want to get you all freaked out too much! LOL

I'd love to see a minimum of **7 reviews** from everyone! Especially over the whole name I've given Danielle! I want to hear what you all think about it. :)

 **Also if anyone is interested in the reasoning behind my lyrics let me know and I'll post that in chapter 32!**

 **Answers to Reviews:**

 **SamXDanny:** That's so great that the last chapter started on your birthday! That's so cool! I'm so happy that you loved this last chapter so much! It means so much to me :) Also let's make sure there's no accidents when reading this story *Wink* *wink* if you know what I mean. Oh yeah! The GIW thing is gonna be huge! I let you on in a little secet: But it's hushy hushy (unless other people read the answer to this review) The GIW thing will be the end of this first book ;) I'll leave that up to you to interpret! Hahahaha Oh my gosh when I was writing Sam's art show I was like they all have to be so connected especially with Charlie there to show him that Danny and Tucker weren't going to act differently around Sam just because he was there. Hope you liked this chapter and I can't wait to hear what you think about Danielle's name change!

 **ShadowDragon357:** Damn, I really need to get back to our emails. But since I have yet to do that this week I'm just gonna answer you review here. Okay so the tattoos were sort of based on our convo but not really. But the big one that apparently was too well hidden was the part about the torture chamber in Sam's room in Danny's door. Obvi it wasn't something too big but yep, that was it hahahaha. You should totally go back and read it. BTW never thought of the Nazi thing but I really like that. It's pretty realistic in the way you described. And oh yeah! Sexual tensions are rising! I love it! But It's also so frustrating to me cuz all I wanna do is put them in a room and say 'Go at it! I know you want to!' but I can't :(

 **Guest Georgia:** I'm so happy that you liked the interview so much! I had to rewrite it a couple of times to get it right lol. Ah! That was my fav part to write! That's great that the ghost dissection was easy to understand. I was a bit worried over it, but I'm glad that you were able to understand it so well.

 **Capitolblonde:** I know that you're scared and nervous but believe me I'm more scared and nervous! I mean I know what's going to happen but there's so much that could happen and I could totally change my mind ;) So… are you givin me an ultimatum if Danielle isn't Danny's daughter? I just want to make sure cuz you weren't very clear. I hope I don't lose you as a reader if something would happen but I would just like to know you know? Anyway, I hope you liked the name Ellie instead of Elle. Idk I just wasn't quite a fan of Elle cuz it was just a bit too proper I think for her. Hope you liked this chapter!


	31. Firey Tales

So apparently I suck. I couldn't even keep the promise I made to myself. Maybe I should just stop making promises. But I've also gotten tad busier because now I've begun studying for the GRE and the GMAT. B/C I don't know if I want to go to graduate school for business or not. So I'm studying for both. Yay! :(

Anyway, updates will still be set for Sundays. I've decided I'm just not going to change it. We'll just have to work through this together. And I've gotten a few complaints in my PM box. And to those people – you know who you are – if you can't deal with the fact that I'm an adult trying to get through college and make my own life then you really shouldn't even be reading this story because of the way I have the characters written in a more realistic light.

But! **THANK THANK THANK YOU** to all of my reviewers from the last chapter! I'm so happy all of you love Ellie's name! **mrenteria99, Cutiepie120048, SamXDanny, AnnoymousPoet, Blue11msu, ShadowDragon357, Ariastella, Rogue Deity Master** and **The Talent!**

 *****Answers to Reviews at Bottom: mrenteria99, SamXDanny, Blue11msu, ShadowDragon357, Ariastella,** and **The Talent!**

 **Diclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or the song 'My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark' by Fall Out Boy.**

BTW: Haven't checked over this chapter. Like at all. PM me if you see something annoying!

* * *

 **Be careful making wishes in the dark**

 **Can't be sure when they've hit their mark**

 **Besides in the meantime I'm just dreaming of tearing you apart**

 **I'm in the details with the devil**

 **So now the world can never get me on my level**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Firey Tales**

 **Word count: 3,871**

 **6/21/16**

* * *

 **October 14th, 2014**

 **Tuesday**

 **Fenton Works: Kitchen**

 **5:00 p.m.**

"Whoa! Sam looked on at the blazing blue firs as if in a trance. "That is _tight_!"

"Tight? Talk about badass awesome!" Tucker exclaimed like a school girl. "Can you do any cool tricks? When did you get them? Tell me, tell me, tell me!"

Ellie laughed and made her blue fire reach over into an arch over her head. "They flared up when I was in Iraq actually. One of the buildings I was staying in got caught in the edge of a bombing and something blew and next thing I knew the building was aflame. I made my way through the thick of things but the fire didn't seem to burn me when it touched me. Then next thing I knew I felt like I was gonna pass out and was beginning to feel feverish, which I thought was from the fire in the building but a few seconds later blue flames burst up all around my body and from my hands and I felt like myself again. I got as many people out of there as I could before heading out into the desert to test my new skills."

She shrugged and doused her flames. "I'm still not very good with them seeing as I've only had them about three months but I haven't had any accidents in a month so I call it a win." She held up a thumbs-up and a cheeky smile.

"Accidents? What kind of accidents?" Sam asked worriedly. Though it might seem weird to an outsider, Sam had come to think of Ellie as a younger sister.

"Well," She sheepishly scratched behind her right ear and bit the left side of her lip before lighting up on of her hands again. "I had a few instances where the fire would get out of my control and then there were a few times it would just flare up at random times or when I was sleeping. Which is actually a reason I went to Greece and Rome because of the whole Greek and Roman gods thing. I know that we're all set in the Zone with them but I figured there had to be more than a few ghosts roaming around out there that could help me. I found a few 'trainers' I guess you could call them but they actually did help me train my fire better."

"Do you still need help?" San asked concerned.

"I think so." She let the fire go out and took her seat back at the table. "I mean it would be cool to learn how to use it during fights – because I haven't had to fight in a long while, - but besides that I'm pretty sure I've got a good handle on this."

"We could always see if Dora or Ember might want to work with you. Ember might be able to tell you a bit more about fighting with it since Dora's typically a Dragon when she breathes fire." Tucker added.

Ellie's eyes instantly lit up, "That would be so cool!" She glanced over at Sam and Danny to see their reactions and could see Sam glaring side-eyed at Danny who's face remained stoic. "What do you think Danny?"

"I think," He let out a breath of air, "That we need to have a look at your DNA records."

"What?" Ellie's eyes widened in shock.

"Why?" Tucker questioned.

"Well, let's think about this for a minute." Danny leaned forward and placed his forearms on the table and folded his hands together.

"Plasmius said that he cloned you. Which would mean that you would have all the powers I had at the time with the same potential in my DNA in your DNA to access the new powers that I have, such as my ghostly wail and my ice powers. But now you have this brilliant blue fire power. The complete opposite of ice. Which plays into the thought that even though you may have been cloned, I think that there must have been other DNA used in your creation to make you not only a clone but your own person with your own mix of DNA."

Sam, Tucker and Ellie all say there in stunned silence.

"Look, I'm just saying that it's a possibility. I mean I obviously don't know that much about a cloning process but it would explain a few things. Like why Ellie's a girl, why she doesn't have my wail power yet or my ice powers. I mean even Frostbite said that her core temperature was not as cold as mine. It would make sense that another, a different donor could have been used. Which is freaky to think of. But it would make sense."

The silence in the kitchen stretched on, until Sam finally spoke up. "Your right. You are absolutely right."

"Are you sure?" Ellie asked, a waver in her voice and she looked down at her hands as if she was seeing them for the first time. "If you're right, then who do I share DNA with?" She looked up and locked blue eyes to blue eyes.

"We would have to go and search through Vlad's files. See how he did the testing. But Ellie…" Danny reached over and grabbed her hands in his own. "If my speculations are correct, no matter what, it doesn't change who you are. You've made yourself, you've found who you are."

Ellie nodded, "Right. Yeah, you're right. So, when do we go bust Vlad's chops?"

The trio chuckled at Ellie's words and the atmosphere lightened exponentially.

"Well, I think he's out this Friday for some conference in Indianapolis. But I don't know when he leaves." Tucker said and pulled out his PDA.

"Why can't we go tomorrow or something?"

"We don't want to alert him that we were there. The less confrontation with Vlad right now the better." Danny explained.

"Okay, but he'll know we broke in no matter what." She stated.

"Yeah but," Sam jumped in, "We don't' really care that he knows we were there. We just care that we don't have to fight him right now."

"Okay." Ellie sighed.

"His conference begins at 11 a.m. on Friday but it doesn't say how long it'll last. But it should be a decent amount enough of time for us to go in right after school gets out and get what we need." Tucker read from his PDA. "It's a conference for Mastersoft so it should last fairly long."

"Okay, we'll plan on Friday after school then. For now though how about we do something a bit more fun. What do you want to do Ellie?"

"Ooh Ooh!" She bounced excitedly, "Can we go on patrol? Please! I'm so feeling an itch right now to go out!"

She looked up at Danny with pleading eyes and he wanted to say, No, that they would go out later but he just couldn't let it go. He was actually reminded of the way Sam would beg and plead sometimes when she got in the mood. But he shook that thought away quickly, knowing that didn't may a lick of sense.

"Alright, we can go out now."

"Yes!" She cheered.

"But," Danny held up a finger to get her attention, "We have to stick together, like I said earlier. And before we go you have to call Jazz."

"Oh my gosh, Aunt Jazz! I forgot!" Danny chuckled and handed her his cell phone from his jeans pocket. "Thank you." She gave him a smile before dialing Jazz up.

While Jazz and Danielle talked on the phone the trio prepared themselves to go out. They weren't sure where Jack and Maddie were, having not seen them since they got home, but truthfully they weren't too concerned.

An hour later and Ellie and Jazz finished talking with a promise to talk again tomorrow. Both Danny and Ellie changed forms and off Team Phantom went.

The night was spent fairly well with enough ghosts out and about to make Ellie happy. She spent most of her time going back and forth between the trio, but actually she spent most of her time with Sam while the boys stuck together.

They had an easy relationship compared to Sam's relationship with Jazz; they hadn't had to work hard to become so close. They spoke of many things when they were on patrol, ranging from the food Ellie ate while abroad to which combat boots were better for fighting. Sam even took the time to show her her new tattoos.

Ellie thought they looked really cool and wondered aloud if she could get a tattoo herself. Sam liked that they could possibly share this but she voiced her reason about wanting Ellie to wait till she was fifteen just to make sure she had given the tattoo idea great thought and if by that time Ellie still wanted one, Sam would figure out a way to get her one.

However, most of the night was uneventful. That was until Danny and Ellie were down by the docks fighting a killer shark ghost and a few of its friends.

"Now we have to worry about them on land too!" Ellie groaned out loud, leading one of the two that were left away from the other.

"It's not exactly fair!" Danny yelled back. "At least if we ever go to a shark infested ocean we'll know how to beat 'em up."

Ellie laughed and punched the oncoming shark in the nose, sending it spiraling back through the air.

She smirked happily but it instantly transformed into a look of fear as Danny let out a shout of pain behind her. She turned around quickly to see Danny holding his left shoulder and Valerie baring down on him and the ghost shark heading back towards him.

"Danny!" She yelled out and shot a blast of fire at the beast before it could sink its' jaws into Danny. She grabbed the thermos off the strap of her back and sucked up her own shark she fought before flying as fast as she could towards Danny and Valerie who were now fighting to grab the other ghost Shark. "Valerie!" She called out after reattaching her thermos.

"Danielle?" Valerie pulled up short from her attack on Danny, but he was already in full swing of a kick to her chest and sent Valerie tumbling away, board and all.

"Danny!" Ellie protested, shooting him a glare but instead of helping Valerie she stayed floating next to him.

"What," He smiled innocently and shrugged his shoulders, "She hit me first."

"Oh and you're the mature one." She crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes.

"Just because your cousin's here, Phantom, won't mean I still won't kick your ass." Valerie said as she pulled up to a stop next to the two of them.

"Please, I'd like to see you try." Danny taunted easily with a grin on his face.

"I'm ready when you are ghost punk."

"Ya lahwy!" Ellie exclaimed and rubbed her temples catching the attention of the two teenagers.

"Uh, what?" Danny questioned.

"It's Arabic. In basic terms it's a different phrase for 'oh my god'." She explained. "Did you two get worse while I was gone?" Danny and Valerie shared a look at that was all the information that she needed. "I really thought you guys could handle your differences." She told them disappointedly.

Danny looked down sheepishly but Valerie pulled back her cowl and let it rest on the nape of her neck, staring at Ellie slightly like she was nuts.

"How about since I know you haven't seen her in a while I go patrol on the other side of the town?" Danny suggested.

"But…"

"It's okay, Danielle," Danny called her by her ghost name, "I'll be fine. But after you two catch up, let me know and I'll come get you, okay?" He gestured to his right ear where one Fenton Phone sat.

"If you're sure." Danielle looked back and forth between both of them.

"I'm sure." Danny side smiled. Then he turned to Valerie and ice appeared not only in his eyes but his voice. "And if I hear that the GIW got a hold of her for even a split second, you'll wish you never put that suit on."

Valerie glared back, "I'm not an animal." She growled.

"Ha!" Danny laughed shortly. "Maybe not to her." Then he turned back to Ellie. "Be good and remember what I said earlier."

"I will." She promised. Danny gave her a salute with two fingers before flying off towards downtown.

"When did you get into town?" The change in voice from Valerie didn't shock Ellie but she wasn't quite happy that Valerie wasn't like this around Danny.

"Late this morning." She answered and sighed, she guess that she could focus on that later. She hadn't seen Valerie in a long time and was still particularly happy to see her. "I've missed you while I've been gone." She looked away from where she had watched Danny disappear to look at Valerie.

"I've missed you too short stack." Valerie chuckled when Ellie curled up her nose at the nickname.

"I'm only 5'3." She defended.

"Still short to me."

Ellie rolled her eyes. "How've you been?"

"Pretty good." She gave a noncommittal shrug. "Wanna fly and talk?" Valerie questioned and pulled her cowl back over her face.

"Yeah let's go." Ellie smiled excitedly and they took off into the air.

Though it was her third time that day telling her story of what transpired when she was overseas she still felt excitement in her words. Valerie was an attentive listener and asked a few questions here and there about the cultures she witnessed. But what really grabbed her attention was the fact that Ellie changed her name and that she now had pyrokinetic powers.

Valerie was quite intrigued by these powers and asked Ellie to show them off for her. She was quite excited to do so because even though she had a fairly okay control over it, she loved these new powers. It helped reinforce her knowledge that she wasn't who Vlad wanted her to be. She was her own person even by that definition alone.

"What's been going on with you though? Anything interesting to report?" Ellie plopped down on the nearest roof. They had been fighting ghosts during most of her story telling but they hadn't had any encounters for thirty minutes and they both wanted to take a bit of a break.

Valerie snapped her sled back together and eased down beside Ellie onto the roof before stepping off of the metal. "Nothing much really. Mainly the same old same old. I do turn 17 though on Thursday. It'll be nice to be one step closer to being 18." She shrugged her shoulders and joined Ellie on the edge of the roof after taking off her cowl.

"Are you gonna have a party?" Ellie questioned.

"If I can get off work for it."

"Still working at the Nasty Burger?"

She sighed, "Yeah, but I did get a promotion up to assistant manager so at least I do not have to wear that god awful mascot uniform anymore."

"Thank god!" Ellie laughed happily. "That thing was hideous!"

"Yeah and it still is." Valerie chuckled along with her. "But now this new freshman wears it. I've given him a few tips on how to make the suit more manageable and how to handle the kids, but it's definitely still a horrible job."

"No kidding. But things have been better though?" Ellie looked at her wanting to ask the secret question about Vlad and how he was Valerie's employer but she didn't want to come right out and ask.

"So far yeah. I've gotten a pay raise at the Nasty Burger. A significant pay raise at that, so I'm saving up for college and helping my dad pay the bills. But I…" Valerie paused and glanced quickly at Ellie before looking back across the skyline, "… I think I'm not going to have to worry about paying for college so much."

"For real?" Ellie beamed at her excitedly, "That's great! Is your dad getting a new and better job?"

"No." Valerie shook her head, "I uh, now don't be mad at me." She turned back to look at her, raising her pointer finger slightly as if to warn Ellie.

Her brows furrowed in confusion but she agreed slowly, "Okay."

"I've been offered a job after I complete college and they will pay for it, wherever I go because they say that I'm really good at what I do. And if it wasn't for the fact that I wouldn't have to worry about college or that I would be in a dead-end job because I also don't want to hung ghost for the rest of my life, or Vlad Masters I wouldn't have agreed to their arrangement."

"Vlad? What's up with you and Vlad?"

Valerie arched her brows, "As if you don't know that he's the same as you. Half man, half ghost."

"You know!" Ellie could only look on in shock. She wondered if Danny knew about this. "How! When?"

Valerie sighed, "When I last worked with you and Phantom. I went back to go pull Masters out of the closet, but then I saw him absorb his Plasmius duplicate and transform. To say the least I was incredibly shocked and then angry. But I've now settled on making sure he doesn't find out and using the money I get to work up something – though I still have no idea what – to pull against him. I have a good amount of cash saved up but if I can keep it under his nose that I know then I'm already beating him at his game. Plus I know he's up to something big right now. Ectoranium is coming to the mansion but when I ask about it he won't tell me. And it's really confusing me because I know that ghosts can't touch ectoranium."

"Wow. So, you've known all this time? Why haven't you said anything to me or to Danny? I mean he's here day in and day out and I know he'd help you get back at Vlad but why didn't you say anything?"

"No offense, but I trust you _way more_ than your cousin."

"I don't really call him my cousin anymore."

"You don't?" Valerie cut-off what she was about to say next. "What do you call him then?"

"Not really sure right now. He does a lot more for me though than what a cousin does. Anyway back to my point I was going to make, Danny is if nothing but better than I am. He helps people and he think very highly of you."

"Yeah I saw the interview." Valerie rolled her eyes while Ellie narrowed hers.

"Well it's true. And yet you both can't seem to work together. And you guys used to be so close!" She threw up her hands in frustration.

"Okay," Valerie drew out, "I don't know what you mean, but we've never been close. And again, no offense, but you don't know half the bad things Phantom has done in this town. And all the good he tries to do doesn't make up for the bad."

"Yes I do know." Ellie folded her arms across her chest and glared angrily, "I do know that the things you think he did were caused by other ghosts and he was trying to defeat them. And I know what you think he did to you was on purpose and that Cujo was his dog, but that's not it at all. Cujo was actually one of the security dogs at Axiom labs from when your father put in the new security system. I don't want to think about why they killed the dogs, but they did and Cujo was searching for his squeaky toy, which in turn ended up destroying most of your things. But that wasn't Danny's fault."

Valerie sat there stunned for a few seconds but her mind at the moment had already been made up, "Look no matter what it won't matter, I'll be ghost hunting the rest of my life. You just need to stay away from the GIW. I don't want to see you get hurt."

"But you're okay with hurting Danny?"

"Look Danielle," Valerie tried to reason.

"No _you_ look," Fire burned at her fingertips, "All he's done was try and help you and you won't even try to be civil to him? That's messed up, Val."

"That's not what the GIW say."

"And what the hell do they know that I don't?"

"You have a biased opinion based on your relationship. And I don't want things to end badly because when I become a GIW agent I don't want to have to hunt you down, okay? Calm down with the fire."

It was starting to spread up Ellie's arms, lighting up the night in a blue light. "Maybe you should reconsider about the GIW. They're nasty people and they don't know what they're doing half the time and the other half they get all their information by stealing it." She didn't want to calm her fire; she let it go across her arms feeling the warmth reverberate deep in her bones. It felt good to let it free for a change.

"Look," Valerie held her hands up defensively, "All I'm saying is that Phantom hurt like three Agents when he was in their custody. Really hurt them. And that's just a base for what he can do because at the time they had dismantled his powers. He hurts people Ellie and I know you can't see it because he's your family or whatever but it could get worse and I don't want you in the crossfire."

"He was trying to escape them. And the GIW did worse things on him than even I could have imagined. They tortured him. Of course he hurt people when he tried to bust out of there."

"The GIW wouldn't torture him. They wanted him for information."

Ellie shook her head and stood up from her spot on the roof; blue fire still blazed on her arms, "And I think you're biased towards the GIW because they're saving you. But all their doing is using you just like Vlad used you. Anyway, I'm done with this conversation. We'll just keep going around and around. I'll see you later." She grumbled and flew up a couple of feet ignoring Valerie's shock before taking off towards the other side of town where she knew the trio would be.

She had to tell them about Valerie and about the fact that Vlad was bringing ectoranium into his own home. She didn't quite know what to think of it either but she knew that Danny would be able to figure it out and if not him, definitely Sam. She focused on calming herself and letting the fire move to just her hands before she radioed them for their position in Amity Park.

 **October 15th, 2014**

 **Wednesday**

 **Somewhere in Amity Park**

 **12:10 a.m.**

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 ** _OKAY EVERYONE LISTEN UP!_** I've been thinking about how I wanna layout this story… And I've been thinking of just keeping it going and not separating it into books when I finish book 1. I wanna hear what you all have to say. Because as my readers your opinion of whether or not you'd want Book 2 to have a different title and start at chapter 1 again would be more beneficial to you or anyone new coming in. Or do you think I should just keep it under the same book title and just make a clear statement where Book 2 begins? I mean I'll do what I'm comfortable with, but I'm also really on the line so it could go anyway! So please review with what you like best! BTW book one will probably end up being 78 or so chapters.

Alright what'd you all think? I hope I got Valerie right in this. You have to remember (or at least I had to) that she still has that rich girl mentality. Though I know she's gotten better, she spent 15 years as the popular, manipulative girl and I really don't see that changing – at least until something major would come along and change it.

Hope you liked it! I actually don't know if I'll be able to update this Sunday. I will do my best but I'm going home Thursday night and Friday I have to get my hair done and Saturday I'm spending shopping with my mom and Sunday I'm going to the water park at my Six Flags. I'll have the chapter planned out for what I want to write, obviously but idk if it'll all be done by Sunday. It may accidentally be another Tuesday update.

I hope to hear your thoughts on this chapter! Please, I would love to see another **7 reviews by anyone and everyone**!

 *****Answers to Reviews:**

 **mrenteria99:** Thank you so much for saying that about the Dani(Ellie) that I write! It meant so much to me! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and hope your summer is going well :) And I'll reply to your PM by this weekend. I've promised someone else that as well so it'll definitely get done :)

 **SamXDanny** : I totally wanna tell you what I'm gonna do! Like it pains me so because you're so loyal! Lol but alas I've decided to keep you waiting for what I'm gonna do with Dani(Ellie)/ Danny. Muhhahahaha. Lol In this chapter I had Ellie give Val a kind of open-ended answer about her and Danny so really she doesn't even know. But I do! And the GIW are sneaky bastards. I actually don't even have them fully planned out yet. But it always has to get worse before it gets better.

 **Blue11msu:** Okay, so more effects? Like what? I kinda have this idea that she's very similar to the firebenders in Avatar: The Last Airbender, but what were you thinking of?

1) You will just have to wait for that

2) Yes! We will be having more confrontation once the weekend in this story hits. Charlie doesn't stay at the house during the week, so we'll only see action on the weekends. I'll probably even have Ellie tag along LOL

3) Yeah I've always seen him using ice weapons and what not. Because I'm pretty sure Sam would make sure he's studied up on them so he'll be able to transform his ice into anything without thinking about it. Speaking of, I'm planning on having them do a workout scene where they work on Danny's powers (mainly ice) and now with Ellie's fire. But mainly I just need help with writing the fighting. Like I know exactly what I want to happen and I see the moves in my head but it's just hard to put it to paper.

4) Yeah I want more date scenes too. I don't have them doing a lot right now because of how busy they all are and stressed (Which is the exact reason they need the dates) but I'm also keeping this more realistic and truthfully with time and homework and fighting ghosts and worrying about Sam's parents and the GIW it's a bit hard to do date time. But I'll try my best to get some juicy bits in there soon!

 **ShadowDragon357:** Good lord, what is happening to me? I just seem to get things more and more piled up. This weekend I will most definitely respond to your PM's from our convo. Like this promise will definitely stick true! I swear on my cat. Yeah the nazi is a bit extrememe but it's also something Sam would totally say.

The torture chamber wasn't really something we talked about, but I alluded to the fact that we've talked about BDSM and the candles and whatnot and 'torture chamber' just seemed to work a bit well for wording for that. Because Sam being the sly devil she is I think would say 'torture' but definitely not in the normal sense.

 **Ariastella:** I have thought about the nicknames and I'm not too sure on them. I want him to have a nickname for her but Ellie's already a nickname for Danielle. And there's going to be more discussion on her name later on because trust me it'll get intense for a bit. But if I was going to do the nicknames like Jack does I think I'd do something like Dani-girl or Baby-Ellie or something. But I don't exactly plan to use those types of nicknames.

 **The Talent:** Take your time! No worries! Life gets in the way (Obvi for me LOL) :) I also can't remember if I answered or not. But at the moment I'm not going to answer. This time around I'm making everyone wait it out Muhahaha LOL but if I've already told you then don't tell anyone else! :)


	32. Angels on Earth

Hey guys! Sorry again for the late update. at the end of the chapter i'll explain and tell you my knew plan. Thank you to everyone who reviewed last chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or the song Roots by Imagine Dragons

* * *

 **I know it's gotta go like this, I know**

 **Hell will always come before you grow**

 **Trouble found me, trouble found me**

 **I know it's gotta go like this, I know**

 **Hell will always come before you grow**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Angels on Earth**

 **Word count: 10,861**

 **7/12/16**

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 **Chapter 32**

 **October 15th, 2014**

 **Wednesday**

 **Somewhere in Amity Park**

 **12:15 a.m.**

When Ellie found the trio, she found them on the other side of town where Valerie and her fought, battling a large purple ghost on the Casper High Football Field. She watched them carefully, and waited for them to finish up the barely level 3 ghost. When Tucker sucked him up into the Fenton Thermos she flew over and down to the field.

"Hey Ellie!" Tucker called up, spotting her first.

"Valerie knows about Vlad." She blurted out without easing into the conversation.

Tucker stopped short and Ellie landed next to him as Sam and Danny quickly made their way over, having heard her proclamation. "Are you sure?" Danny questioned.

"Yeah." She nodded, "She told me herself that she saw him transform."

"When? Where?" Sam jumped in, her lilac eyes wide in shock and uncertainty.

"She told me that the last time that when me and Danny fought together with her and the whole mess with Plasmius. That after we left, she went back into Vlad's house to get his human form. But she saw Masters turn into Plasmius and she got out of the house before he could see her. Now she just lays low on that knowledge, but I'm pretty sure she's just bidding her time for the best time to try and defeat him. But she says that he has some sort of plan going on, and he hasn't let her in on it, so I think she'll wait to figure out what he's doing with all the ectoranium he's pulling in so she can either counter it or make it not happen at all."

"Damn." Danny said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I don't know if things just got easier or much harder."

"Well, Valerie said that Vlad doesn't know that she knows. Shouldn't that make it easier for us?"

"It should but it's about 95% a possibility that Vlad already knows that Valerie knows and is just waiting her out and he has some plan already set up for when she tries to out him." Tucker said.

"But Vlad gives her money for her to keep ghost fighting. Why would he keep paying her if she knows who he really is?"

"One reason is to keep Valerie thinking that he doesn't know about her knowing his secret. Plus money to him is pretty much something that doesn't matter, so paying for Valerie to ghost hunt will help him no matter what. Plus it's a way to keep his business of weaponry running. And I'm pretty sure Valerie can't even put the money he gives her into her bank account because it's not exactly a 'real' job. You know, one she can pay taxes on and what not." Danny explained.

"How did you figure that out?"

Danny shrugged, "If fighting ghosts was worth something financially, I'd be rolling in dough right now."

"But don't the GIW get paid to hunt ghosts?" Ellie looked between the three in confusion, and crossed her arms. "Val said that they offered her a position as an Agent and that if she accepted that they'd pay for her college. That means there's some money in ghost fighting right?"

"It's only that way for them because they're funded by the government. Everyone else either applies for grants or they're rich enough to not have to worry about the cost." Sam told her.

"Okay, but you can't let Valerie join them, though." Ellie jumped to her main focus. She was worried for her friend and she knew that that the trio could talk some sense into her. Or at least she hoped.

"We're going to do our best to get Valerie to realize the errors of the GIW but money is a powerful driving force, El." Danny stated sadly, "Valerie's been given the opportunity to go to any college she can get into and not have to worry about dropping a penny for it if she works for them and after college she'll have a steady job that pays fairly well. It's disappointing that she's taking this deal, but it's not surprising."

Ellie growled in frustration, "Well then why don't you tell her your secret? If she knew it was you that had been taken by the Guys in White then maybe she'll reconsider their deal."

"We don't know how she'll react." Tucker sighed, "I think that through our past experiences of Valerie finding out we've had maybe two instances where telling her about Danny's identity has ended positively… it's not something we can risk right now. If push comes to shove, then it might be a wise decision, but we're not going to tell her just to get her to see reason."

"But…" Ellie looked at them all in a small bit of confusion.

"It's her own choice, Ellie." Sam jumped in, placing a hand on the younger girls shoulder. "We can only influence it as much as possible. Just telling her about Danny more than likely will just set her off. We can't push her into something; she's too stubborn, no matter how reasonable you can sound."

Ellie sighed, seeing the reason behind their words. Flashes of her and Valerie's conversation flashed through her mind.

" _He hurts people Ellie and I know you can't see it because he's your family or whatever but it could get worse and I don't want you in the crossfire."_

" _He was trying to escape them. And the GIW did worse things on him than even I could have imagined. They tortured him. Of course he hurt people when he tried to bust out of there."_

" _The GIW wouldn't torture him. They wanted him for information."_

She had tried to reason with Valerie, explain what had happened when Danny was captured and what happened a few years ago between him and her. But Valerie didn't want to listen and at that point she knew that Sam was right. Valerie was too stubborn to see any reason besides her own. But it didn't mean she wouldn't try to get Valerie to see how truly bad the GIW were.

"There's nothing we can do about it tonight. How about we all head home for some decent rest before tomorrow?" Danny suggested and rose a few feet into the air.

Tucker yawned and stretched his arms over his head, "Sounds like a good plan."

"Is it okay if I stay with you?" Ellie asked as Sam and Tucker mounted their scooters and she joined Danny up in the air.

"Of course." Danny smiled over at her, "My bed can fit two people now since my parents got me a queen considering I was completely hanging off my twin."

Ellie giggled, "Good thing you got a bigger bed, then."

Danny laughed as well before pressing the call button on the Fenton Phones, "Text me when you guys get home."

"Will do."

"Roger that." Sam and Tucker said respectively before they all headed off towards their homes.

Danny and Ellie's flight became a quick race to see who could get home first – with Ellie winning but only barely. Danny found the house to be dark and figured his parents had already headed to bed, not bothering to wait up for him – not that he minded of course. He was able to quietly make his way over to Jazz's room and grab a pair of her old shorts and a t-shirt for Ellie to sleep in. After changing in the bathroom, and turning off the lights, they both laid down in Danny's bed, exhausted from the day.

"Thank you." Ellie's whispered words traveled through the darkness.

"For what?" Danny whispered back, his eyes staying closed.

"For letting me stay."

"No reason to thank me, El." Danny smiled and opened his eyes slightly. He could just make out her own blue eyes staring back at him in slight confusion, " _Because_ , you're part of this family. You have a home wherever we are. No matter what."

"Well, anyway, it's still a nice thing to do."

Danny scooted closer to her and kissed her quickly on the forehead before lying back down on his pillow, "You're welcome. Now, get some sleep. Who knows how long we'll have this time."

Ellie chuckled but she knew how true that statement was. "Okay. Goodnight."

"Night, El."

When the morning rolled around Danny woke up feeling more refreshed than he had in ages. That's when he realized he had woken up to the sound of his alarm for the first time in a long time and not to his ghost sense. Next to him Ellie was still asleep, thankfully, so he quickly and quietly made his way around his room getting ready for school before heading downstairs to make them both breakfast since he had enough time this morning to do so.

Lo and behold however, he was surprised to see both Maddie and Jack at the kitchen table, each eating a plate of pancakes with bacon and toast on the side.

"Hi, Danny. How'd you sleep, honey?" Maddie asked a bit too chipper for him and his shocked mind.

"What?"

"You look well rested Danny-boy. Have a quiet night over at Tucker's… or we're you at Sam's?"

"Um, yeah… quiet, night. Right." Danny moved towards the cupboard with the cereal, grabbing the frosted mini wheats.

"Good, good." Jack said happily before taking a large bite of his pancakes that were overflowing with syrup.

Danny was getting more and more freaked out. He hadn't seen them up in the kitchen for breakfast in at least a month. They were either down in the basement working on certain projects or they were still in bed from staying up too late, working on said projects. He poured the milk into his bowl of mini wheats before putting the box back along with the milk in their appropriate places. "So what's with the pancakes this morning, Ma… mom?"

"Well, it's a bit of a celebratory breakfast I guess." She shrugged. Danny pulled a spoon out of the silverware drawer and placed it in his bowl before moving towards the pantry.

"For what?"

"For getting all of our designs and projects done that we needed to get ready to bring with us to the Convention in Minnesota this weekend." Jack informed him through a mouth full of bacon.

"Convention?" Danny found the box of strawberry pop-tarts and pulled out a package, before turning back to Maddie and Jack.

"Yes, we would like to talk with you about that, actually." Maddie looked at him sweetly and Danny couldn't fathom where this was coming from. He tried to remember if he had felt his ghost sense actually wake him up but he was 100% positive that he had not felt that frozen chill move up through him that morning; which meant Jack and Maddie weren't being overshadowed. He wondered if something happened down in the lab, but he brushed it off as he saw Jack take another large bite of pancakes. Maybe something only happened to Maddie?

"Okay." Danny nodded and moved back to the counter where his mini-wheats sat and picked them up before turning around and leaned against said counter, and began eating his cereal. "Shoot."

Maddie sighed, disappointed that he hadn't taken a seat at the table, but continued on with what she was going to say, "This convention is a bit longer than the others that we've been to."

"So you'll be gone a week or something then?"

"Actually two weeks."

"Two?" Danny couldn't believe his luck. Maybe things were finally turning around in his favor.

"Yes. It's because it's the first global ghost hunting convention we've had since the discovery a few years back. There's going to be lots of conferences and meetings and weapons to go over and people to speak with. We'll be up in a resort in Minnesota but while we're gone we've set it up with the Foley's that you'll be staying with them during our absence."

Okay, he could work with that. Danny was a bit disappointed because he was thinking of having everyone over at his home when his parents were gone, but at least he knew the Foley's were fairly lax. "Okay, sounds reasonable. When do you guys leave?"

"This Saturday." Jack answered.

"Alright, then. I'll make sure I'm here to see you off. But now I've got to get to school. See you later." Danny dismissed himself easily. He dumped the remaining milk into the sink, rinsed his bowl and put it in the dishwasher before quickly making his way back upstairs with the pop-tarts in his left hand.

"You awake?" Danny asked quietly as he entered his room, but he found that Ellie was still dead to the world, snoring lightly. "I'll take that as a, no." Danny chuckled. He quickly wrote a note to her, leaving it on the nightstand with the pop-tarts next to it.

Sam let him know a few minutes after he wrote Ellie's note that she had pulled up in front of the house.

"Morning." Danny smiled quickly at her before leaning over and stealing a quick kiss.

"Somebody's in a good mood." She noted, and quickly snatched another kiss, this one lasting a bit longer than the last.

"Yeah." Danny chuckled as they pulled apart. "I think I'm just overly happy that Ellie's here."

Sam smiled to herself and pulled out of Danny's driveway. "It is really nice to have her back home for a change."

"It's actually kind of funny. Ellie shows up and she's planning on staying and my parents just told me this morning that they're leaving on Saturday for a two week ghost hunting convention up in Minnesota."

"What?"

"Yeah. No idea, they're usually so talkative about the conventions and conferences that they go to, but they were pretty quiet about this one."

"Weird."

"I thought so too. They were acting fairly normal though. It was pretty creepy."

"What were they doing?"

"Just sitting at the table eating breakfast. Maddie had made pancakes and bacon. Which she hasn't done in at least two months and they were just acting so… normal. Not like their kind of normal, but actual normal."

"You think they were being overshadowed?"'

Danny shrugged and shook his head, "Don't think so. My sense didn't go off."

"Hmm." Sam pursed her lips and pulled into Tucker's driveway. "Tell Tucker we're here." Danny pulled out his phone and did as she asked. "But maybe Maddie and Jack were just happy to finally be done getting all their equipment ready and whatnot. It's been a while but maybe they were just trying to have a regular morning, even if it's weird for us."

"What's weird for us?" Tucker asked as he entered the car.

"Maddie and Jack acting normal." Danny answered.

"Yeah, that's pretty weird."

"Also, apparently starting on Saturday I'm staying at your house for two weeks."

"You are?" Tucker leaned forward between the seats. "My parents didn't say anything."

"I was just telling Sam, that Maddie and Jack are going to be gone for two weeks and they set up with your parents for me to stay at your house until they come back."

"Really?" Tucker asked intrigued. "Well, this'll be interesting."

Danny laughed, "I think we'll have a pretty good two weeks."

"So how'd Ellie settle in?" Sam changed the subject.

"Pretty good, I'd say. I gave her a few of Jazz's clothes. She was still sleeping when I left this morning but I told her that if she needed anything to drop by the school and just make sure no one's around."

"Good idea. I was thinking though, since she pretty much doesn't have any clothes except the few in her bag that I should take her out to the mall to get a few things today after school."

"So that means we don't have to go right?" Danny wondered aloud.

"I just said ' _I would take her out'_. You and Tucker can do whatever. I think me and her will do a girls night."

"You think we should bring her by to see Ida?" Tucker wondered.

"Today?" Danny asked.

"Yeah, sure why not?"

"Sounds like a good idea." Sam agreed. "We can stop by my house first and then me and her can head out to shop and you two can go do some studying, because god knows you need to."

"Hey!" Both boys scoffed and glared slightly at her causing Sam to chuckle as she pulled into the school parking lot.

The school day was most particularly boring. Ellie showed up during their mid-morning classes and told Danny he didn't have to leave school to fight any ghosts that might show up because she was going to take care of it. Danny of course protested, but Ellie, Sam and Tucker were very adamant on him staying in classes throughout the day at least for one day. Danny agreed but only when Ellie agreed that if a ghost appeared that was too hard for her to handle she would come and get him.

However that didn't happen and Danny spent a regular day in school – though he did worry about Ellie most of the day, he knew that she would be fine. It was particularly weird that Danny was able to spend the entire day in school without having to worry about missing classes.

When school finally ended the trio stopped by Danny's house to quickly pick up Ellie before heading off to Sam's. Ellie got quite excited when Sam told her that they were going to take her to see Ida. She'd always heard great things about the older woman and unlike Sam or Danny's parents she desperately wanted to meet Ida.

"I don't think I've ever been so excited." Ellie practically bounced as they walked into Sam's home.

The trio smiled, happy to see her so excited and made their way upstairs towards Ida's room.

"You think she'll like me?" She asked; a bit of a nervous tone came out amongst her giddiness.

"She's going to love you." Danny reassured, placing a calming hand on her shoulder.

"You think?" She looked up at Danny without tilting her head.

"I know so. Otherwise we'd just keep you our little secret." He smiled soothingly.

Sam reached Ida's bedroom door and knocked three times before turning the handle and walking in. "Grandma?" But they didn't find her inside. "Grandma?" She asked a bit louder and moved further into the room, but she still didn't find her. "I bet she's downstairs in the theater." Sam told them and turned around to head back down the stairs.

"You guys have a theater in your _house_?"

"They also have a bowling alley." Tucker added.

"What! That's so cool! Can we play?"

"We can later." Sam answered.

They all made their way down into the basement and into the theater room where they found Ida resting in a recliner, feet propped up, a bucket of popcorn in her lap and the movie Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck playing.

"Hey grandma!" Sam announced their arrival happily.

"Hello dears." Ida quickly paused her movie and looked towards the group noticing quickly noting the change in numbers. "And who is the newest addition to your group?"

"Hi!" Ellie chirped and rushed over to Ida, holding out her hand, which Ida took gingerly and shook. "I'm Ellie. Well, Danielle. But I like to go by Ellie now."

Ida chuckled and pushed the legs of the recliner down, "It is very nice to meet you, Ellie." She cocked her head to the side though as she let go of Ellie's hand, "You remind me of someone. Have I seen you around somewhere before?"

Ellie glanced quickly to Danny and Sam who both nodded, that it was okay to tell her. She was excited to meet Ida but she knew that this secret was something that they all kept close to their hearts. But she knew that she could trust what they had to say, so she quickly transformed, bathing the room in a bright light. "You've probably seen me with Danny. I'm Danielle Phantom."

"I see." Ida looked at each of the trio's faces who all wore slightly pleading expressions for her to understand. "Well, it is incredibly great to finally meet you, Ellie. How long have you been back in Amity Park?" She gestured for them all to take a seat. Ellie took a seat on the couch on the end closest to Ida while Danny and Sam sat together on the other end taking the chance to curl up together. Tucker himself chose the other recliner on Ida's other side.

"Just a little under two days. Not very long. But this time I plan to stay."

"So you've been traveling then? Where have you been? Did you go with anyone?"

"No." Ellie shook her head. "I went by myself, but I liked it that way. I traveled for a long time around the world and I met a lot of new friends and whatnot."

"Very interesting. Where did your recent travels take you?"

Ellie smiled widely, happy to talk again about where she had travelled. "Well, I came from Rome, I was learning how to control one of my powers actually while I was there from some ghosts I was able to come in contact with. It's a really beautiful city and…"

Ellie continued to tell her story once more, making all the way from her most recent travels to the first time her and Danny met. Of course when it got to the earlier times with Danny, the trio jumped in to help explain certain things. Ida was more than beside herself to learn that Ellie was a clone. She voiced her opinion clearly that Ellie did not look or act like a clone and she would have known none the wiser. Ellie of course was exceptionally grateful for what she had to say, knowing it must be the truth not because Ida was Sam's closest family but because of Ida's kind nature.

"Now that you're back in the States what are you planning on doing? You said you were going to stay here?"

"Yeah. I just… I want to stay here. With my family. I've done so much traveling and I've realized over my time away that I miss being around the people that I love. No more living on the streets or having to search for a place to stay all the time, I'm ready for a sense of normalcy. So I'm going to stay here in Amity Park. I've done enough traveling for a lifetime."

"Good. That's great that you know what you want for yourself. But if I may, can I ask a few questions?"

"Of course." Ellie nodded eager to hear what she had to say. The trio themselves perked up wondering where Ida was about to take their conversation.

"If you'll be staying, would that mean you'd be going to school? And if you're going to school then you'll need documents stating your previous schooling among other documents such as a birth certificate and social security card. Do you have these documents? Does Vlad Masters have those documents? Not only that but where are you going to be staying? At Danny's home? Here? Tucker's? Where ever you stay you'll need a story. Have you thought of what that might be?"

"Uh… I… I… umm…" Ellie blanched at the questions Ida shot her way.

"Grandma, what… where's this coming from? My house?" Tucker blurted out alongside Ellie.

"No, she's right." Danny quickly jumped in. "Ask Sam, I've been thinking about this pretty much all day."

"You have?" Tucker and Ellie asked simultaneously, looking at him in shock and confusion.

"Pretty much. The only snag I keep coming across is the legal documentation."

Ellie looked on at him in confusion and Danny continued,

"I mainly haven't figured out if Vlad has any fakes made. Because if he does and we don't have them it could be really bad, because what I figured out is that if we go public with you, Ellie, then he could potentially claim you legally with the fake documents. Because Vlad would have gotten the best of the best. Plus he's insanely rich, which would mean we would have no chance against him in any kind of court and we wouldn't be able to do anything about him legally being able to take you back."

"No fucking way am I going back to Vlad." Ellie growled.

"Which means that we need to figure out what Vlad has on you and go from there. But honestly if he does have fake documentation we'll either have to figure out how to get rid of it or take it for ourselves and make sure we get the names changed on them or… I don't know… I haven't exactly thought that far." Danny groaned in annoyance, running the hand that wasn't wrapped around Sam's waist through his hair in agitation.

Ellie started breathing slightly heavy, one hand gripped the arm rest while the other dug into her left leg. "We have to…" She tried to take in a deep breath, "…do something… we can't…" She tried to take in another, "…can't let him…. I don't want… why can't I breathe?"

Sam quickly got up from her side of the couch to sit next to Ellie. She grabbed each of her hands in her own, gripping them tightly. "I need you to breathe, okay. It's called a panic attack, but you need to calm down your breathing."

"But… but…" She locked eyes with Sam and tried to calm down, but she felt as though she might start to pass out.

"Vlad is not going to get you. But breathe with me, okay? In," Sam slowly sucked in a breath counting to ten. "And out slowly." She breathed out slowly again. Ellie tried to copy her movements but it was incredibly tough. "Again." Sam tightened her hold on Ellie's hands. Danny was by her now as well, rubbing her back and Tucker moved in front of her, trying to calm her down by telling her that Vlad would never get her again.

It took a good while before Ellie was calm enough to not have any trouble and another few before she'd let go of Sam's hands.

"That's, uh, never happened before. Or well, at least like that." Ellie blushed.

"It's okay, El." Danny reassured, "I get them too. It happens. No need to freak out over it. We just have to handle them as they come at us."

Ellie's eyes widened, "You mean it'll happen again?"

Danny shrugged, "I'm not going to lie to you. Panic and anxiety attacks seem to happen more in this line of work. But it is nothing that you need to feel ashamed of or anything, okay? Trust me, I've gotten them enough."

"Don't they have medicine or something for it?" Ellie asked with great concern. She knew having panic attacks often wasn't a good thing and she wanted to make sure that Danny wasn't shoving them off to the side.

"They do." Tucker jumped in. "But he refuses to go to a doctor."

"Oh and how am I going to explain the attacks that I typically have after nightmares?" Danny rolled his eyes.

"Look," Sam intercepted before they could get into an argument that would have them all going around in circles for hours. "All we're saying is that it's okay to have a panic attack. What's not okay is if you keep having them. That's when you need to talk to somebody. And if you need to, you can talk to Jazz. She's kind of a free psychologist for all of us."

"That's another thing to be concerned about." Ida said seriously. "Doctor's appointments. Getting sick. Getting injured. Who is going to take care of you? Danny can't. He's still only in high school. There's only so much he can do. Would you be fine with the Fenton's being your guardians?"

Ellie sat there in stunned silence. "I… I don't… I don't know. I didn't think… I didn't know…"

"It will be okay El, I know that it's overwhelming but I've been trying to come up with a back story all day and I think I have an idea on how we could work it if you want to live with me."

"How about you tell us your idea before she makes any decision and then I'll let you in on my own plan I've been forming." Ida reasoned before Ellie could try and answer.

"Okay." Danny agreed, giving a quick nod.

"Well, on Jack's side he had an older brother, my uncle named James, that's where my middle name came from. When I was ten he passed away from Cancer. I don't know what kind so don't ask. But what I do know is that he used to be married to a woman named Dawn. But apparently one day she up and left him when I was about two and a half, almost three. They never divorced. But she never came back either. When I was 13 we got a call from what I guess was the hospital informing us that Dawn had been killed in a car crash. She had apparently never taken Jack's name and my uncle's name off of her emergency contact list.

"We can use this information to our advantage. Say Dawn had gotten pregnant but knowing that my uncle didn't want kids of his own – which was true – she ran."

"But what about her death?" Sam questioned aloud.

"Well, I figured that she moved far enough away from Springfield that we could probably say she was on the road a lot. But we'd have to look up more information to make sure. Then Ellie heard about Maddie and Jack since they've become fairly well-known in the science world and she comes to our house and explains her situation. And knowing Maddie and Jack they're not ones to turn away a family member."

"But they already have trouble being parents to you. And considering they'd go through the legal system, I don't think they'd deem your home suitable enough for her to stay in anyway." Tucker said after Danny explained his plan.

"It could work." Ida agreed tentatively, "It would be a hard path, but only if Ellie truly wants to keep the last name _Fenton_." She turned to look at the younger girl.

"I do _want_ to go by Fenton. But your plan makes me nervous, Danny. Like Maddie and Jack knew… Dawn, right?" Danny nodded, "And I have to pretend that I knew her to two people who actually knew her. And what happens if they find out I'm not who I say I am? I may not be afraid of Jack but Maddie terrifies me like no other. Plus, what if she has other family?"

"She was an orphan actually." Danny stated sadly, "And she never had anyone close as far as what my Uncle had said. But you're right it would have to be a risk. And we'd have to take extra precautions, but if we do everything correctly then we shouldn't have to worry too much."

"But it's pretty much a risk no matter what we do, right?"

"Which means you would have to go with the idea with the least amount of risks." Tucker said in agreement with Ellie.

She turned to look at Ida, "You said you had an idea, Mrs. Manson? What were your thoughts?"

"Oh, please dear call me grandma or Ida. Mrs. Manson makes me sound too much like my mother-in-law."

"Right." Ellie looked slightly embarrassed. "Sorry, Ida." She said a bit unsure of calling her grandma yet. "So what was your idea you had?"

Ida smiled sweetly at her. "My idea is actually similar to Danny's. Of course just slightly different.

"I used to have a much older sister named Louisa. We were about 17 years apart. She passed away in '97 before Sam was even born. She had a son, my nephew, named David, who was married to Maisey, a wonderful woman. However, in the spring of 2000 they were involved in a horrific car crash caused by a drunk driver going the wrong way on a highway, killing them both as well as their five month old daughter.

"I only ever got to see their daughter once and that was just after she had been born. But having all three of them pass was just as heartbreaking as if it had been only David. I had gotten the call from the hospital – having been their main emergency contact. Maisey's own parents were not around, having been killed in a plane crash when she was twenty-four. My brother-in-law, David's father, was there neither for he had passed away from cancer a few years before Louisa passed.

"I have an old _friend_ who used to be a social worker up in Chicago – where my nephew and his family lived – who owes me a particularly large favor. Don't ask." She held up a finger to Tucker's opened mouth. "I have their documents: birth certificates, social security cards and a few other items. Danny if you could be a dear and get them for me? They're on a shelf above my closet in a pink and white stripped box, labeled '98-'01."

"Yeah I'll be right back." He quickly untangled himself from Sam, turned intangible and flew up through the ceiling.

"Ellie," Ida continued on, "You look remarkably similar to their daughter, Michelle. I do believe you're a bit taller than she would have been at your age but no one would be none the wiser. The only thing that is truly different is the shade of blue of your eyes. Maisey's were a bit darker blue than yours but David's eyes were lilac like my sisters and my own. But on records when describing eye color it is only _blue_ , so it's not as though that would be much of an issue."

Danny appeared through the theater's ceiling and landed in front of Ida, turning solid again before handing over her large, pink and white stripped box. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Danny side-smiled at her and took his seat back on the couch with Sam.

"Now, I want you to look at a few pictures before you make any decision and I'll answer any questions I can about it." Ida removed the lid and shuffled through a few papers before pulling out a small box and removed that top as well, revealing a small stack of pictures. She handed a few to each of them, though she gave Ellie the largest stack.

"What's her full name?" Ellie asked as she looked at the photo on top of her pile. A baby with dark brown, almost black hair, and deep blue eyes looked up at her with a large smile, sitting on a blanket, leaned up against a couch. She wore a purple shirt that said 'Too Cute for You' and a pair of white baby shorts. She thought she looked a bit like herself and thought she was the cutest thing. She felt a heavy weight in her heart that this innocent little girl didn't even get a chance to live her life. To even know what life was.

"Michelle Diana McNab."

"That's fairly convenient." Sam whispered aloud as she looked through her own pictures. Danny, Tucker and Ellie looked at her in confusion but Ida smiled in understanding. Sam rolled her eyes at the other three. "Her first name. It's Michelle. It can easily be shortened to the nickname of Ellie or Elle."

"Oh!" Danny's eyes widened. "That would make it a lot easier actually."

"She looks so much like Ellie it's kind of scary." Tucker was back to looking at his group of pictures. They all looked down at their own pictures of Michelle they had and studied them.

"Their noses are slightly different." Sam held up her picture of a close up of Michelle's face in line with Ellie's. While Ellie's nose turned up slightly at the end, Michelle's was a bit rounder and faced down.

"And Ida was right about the eyes." Ellie jumped in herself.

"Yeah but," Danny grabbed the picture out of Sam's hands, "Everything else looks pretty much the same. They both even have the smile dimple on their right cheek only. This little girl could practically _be_ Ellie."

"One of the reasons I came up with this idea. As well, getting a name change isn't that big of a deal. Taking in the favor from my friend, as well as a few doctors, would only go into true affect if we had to go to court. Of course I would have the story and paper work all planned out before anything might happen. But honestly the only reason I could see going to court would be if Vlad wanted you back that badly."

Ellie hummed in answer but was mainly focused on the photos she was going through. Pictures of Michelle in the hospital, in her crib, in her car seat, laughing, crying, with her parents, eating, sleeping, angry, smiling a very similar smile to her own.

"I don't know if I could take the name of this dead little girl." She quickly blurted out the thought as it entered her mind. She looked up from the picture and into Ida's eyes, ignoring the trio's. "I love your idea. I do. It's a lot simpler and more prepared than Danny's, plus with real documents, things would go a lot smoother. But this little girl was real and I don't want to tarnish who she already was. But I do love your idea. Especially because of insurances and stuff and I do know that the more money you have the better it is to handle that stuff. And I really don't want to put that pressure on you, Danny, but then I don't want to ruin what this little girl could have been."

"I think she would be happy to help you in this situation. I know that her father, David, would be proud to have his daughters name carried on in memory, especially to a young woman so beautiful, strong and independent as yourself." Ida bounced back.

"Ida's right." Danny stated quickly before Ellie could, though she did turn to face him. "You would be a perfect fit to carry on this little girls name. Of course only if you _want_ to. But you'd be able to give her the life she never got to live. As well you'd have a separate identity away from Vlad or ghost hunting, seeing as you wouldn't take the last name Fenton. Also, if you were to pick the story I have, who's to say that Maddie and Jack even have the money to bring in a third child. They barely have enough to pay for Jazz's college – even though they've reassured multiple times that it wouldn't be a big deal. Most of their money goes to their experiments and inventions, which when they sell to the GIW, they take that money and use it for more experiments. But right now I'm the one helping Jazz pay for college – I'm hoping to get her out almost debt free. And the rest goes to groceries or little miscellaneous things, like clothes. That's why I'm going to start selling my ice figurines."

"So you decided for sure then?" Tucker interrupted.

"I have. But I'm going to do it with Sam's agent because the percent she wants back is fairly low for the art world. But beside that, Ellie, you would have many more opportunities in your life if you went with grandma's story. I don't want you to turn out like me."

They all balk at him. Though Sam, Tucker and Ida knew exactly what he meant, but Ellie didn't, having not been around enough to understand his insecurity.

"What are you talking about? Who _wouldn't_ want to end up like you? You're the best person I know!"

"It's not the way you're thinking." He tried to placate and the other three groaned in irritation. But Tucker and Sam really knew where this conversation was about to go more-so than Ida.

"Right now my opportunities are fairly limited. If I even get into college it's going to be the University here in Amity Park. And not even the more respectable one. I want _you_ to have the opportunity to do whatever you want. To go to the best college's in the nation if you want to. I want you to get the best out of life, like Jazz. When I get old enough to actually have to have a real job, my choices are going to be limited with what works with my schedule. And considering I really don't have one, I would need to do something that wouldn't get me fired if I miss out for a few hours. Or days. I know I'm smart and if I didn't have ghosts attacking practically every second of the day my work would show it. Which is why you need to not turn out like me. With grandma you wouldn't have to worry about money. You would do better in school. You wouldn't have to worry about Vlad. You could live the life you talked about. You could have a better future than any you've dreamed of."

"That's absurd." Ellie's voice held a touch of anger behind it as she folded her arms across her chest. "You have a great life. Plus, I'm here now to help with the ghosts and that means you can put more effort into school and go wherever you want like you want me to do. You'll be able…"

"I'm stuck here, El. My obsession is my family and before it was just my family and of course Sam and Tucker and their families but after three years this city has become an extended reach of that. I've helped so many people. So many that I know that if I see them I could have a conversation with them. I've helped people where it doesn't even concern ghosts. I can't just abandon the good people for a few years. I'll be here and end up being a police officer or something. But you're not stuck here, Ellie."

"You could be a firefighter." Ellie shrugged then grinned like the Cheshire cat, "Or if the case is that you can't leave then you can be a trophy husband since Sam's going to be making a boatload as the head of Manson Inc."

This statement had the whole group bursting out in laughter, even Danny who let out an indignant 'Hey!' but Sam kissed his cheek and joined in on their laughter. Tucker even began laughing so hard that he had tears in his eyes.

Everyone else had calmed down after a minute or so but Tucker was surprisingly (read: unsurprisingly) still laughing.

"Come on Tuck, it wasn't _that_ funny." Danny rolled his eyes.

He laughed, holding his stomach. "Haha, I keep imagining you in an apron and cooking this big vegan meal for Sam who arrives home every day and she kicks off her shoes and you fetch her slippers and…haha… your hair is up in a bun like a mom." And he starts uncontrollably laughing again but this time Sam joined him.

"Sam!" Danny whined. "Come on!" But she only shook her head.

"You have to admit that it's a pretty funny picture." She smiled up at him and winked.

The seriousness of the situation dimmed exponentially but Danny knew he had to get everyone back on track.

"Ellie, it's whatever you choose. And if you don't like these options I think we could come up with something." He tried to reassure positively. "And no matter what you choose it will not hurt my feelings in the slightest. I just want what's best for you."

Ida nodded in agreement. "How about you take some time to think about the options we've given you. If you would like we can make a pro/ con list for you."

Ellie nodded quickly. "Yeah, I think it'll help a lot."

Sam quickly stood up from her seat next to Danny and grabbed a pen and paper from the small office that occupied their basement. They all made out a pro/con list for each of the ideas before handing it over to Ellie. She gladly took it and cautiously began looking it over.

"Do I really need insurance if I can just heal in a few days?" She asked when she noticed the largely printed word on both lists.

"Like we mentioned earlier you could need it for anything you have to go to the doctor for. Like shots or if you get sick or if you break something. Or god forbid you were in a car wreck. Or some serious illness. It's precautionary." Sam informed her.

Ellie nodded and hmmed in understanding before looking over the lists once more.

 **Danny's List**

 **Pros:** \- Would have Fenton last name

\- Would not have to use a little girl's name

\- Would be with Danny and be able to get closer to him

\- Would not have to worry about being in Sam's situation with the parties and the people (though not likely as bad)

\- Papers/ documents would be easy to get

\- Most of the story would be true because you traveled for so long

\- Access to the lab and portal

 **Cons:** \- You would have Fenton name

\- The person supposedly her 'dad' would be known by someone as well as your 'mom' (it's too close in generations)

\- Would be money pressures not only on Maddie and Jack but slight pressure on Danny

\- Living under the roof of ghost hunters

\- Worry about insurances

\- Have to answer to Maddie and Jack

\- Probably would have to go to court and would take a long length of time and more than likely would be in foster care for an extended period of time

She moved on to Ida's list of pros and cons.

 **Ida's List**

 **Pros:** -not have to worry about money

\- No one alive to question who you are

\- Papers and documents are easy to get and have some already that are legitimate

\- Do not have to answer to Pamela and Jeremy – only Ida

\- Ida wouldn't have to go to court, rather if she did it would be a small thing and would be over quickly

\- Easy story to remember

\- Could easily get name changed

\- Wouldn't have to worry about Maddie

\- Most of the story would be true because you did technically 'runaway'

\- Will not have to worry about your future

\- Vlad will have a harder time trying to get you back

 **Cons:** \- Have to use the name of little girl at least until name change

\- Would have to deal with Pamela and Jeremy

\- Would not be living with Danny

\- Would not have Fenton last name

\- Slightly harder access to the lab and portal

"You don't have to decide today." Danny said softly, pulling her out of her reading.

"Is there somewhere I could go to look this over?" She inquired instead.

"You can use my room. Up the stairs, make a left and I'm at the end of the hallway. You can't miss it."

"Thanks." Sam gave her a reassuring smile and she made her way up the stairs, forgoing using her powers.

When she reached Sam's room – after almost having a run-in with her mother – Ellie took a seat on Sam's bed noting that it hadn't changed since the last time she had flown through her window. She placed the two sheets of paper out in front of her. At first all she did was stare at it, eyes swimming between the black and white. But she closed her eyes and decided to start sorting things on a separate piece of paper. She got up and grabbed two pieces and a pen before sitting back down.

"Alright," She spoke aloud to herself. She always did when she was making a big decision, it helped her think better. "What could I live with or technically without? Or it doesn't exactly matter either way…"

She situated the paper and went down the list, "Let's see… being stuck in Sam's situation isn't very concerning to me because I'd be more under Ida's guardianship than theirs. And I don't have to exactly worry about getting close to Danny because no matter what we're gonna be around each other practically all the time. So it doesn't really matter if I'm over here or there, truthfully. And then I guess getting the stories down doesn't matter either. I mean I'll have to memorize most parts no matter what.

"Though Danny did say they could probably figure something else out for me. But I don't' really want to do anything else… I think he just wants me to be happy. Okay, back to the list." She mentally shook her head and went back to making her list.

"I really don't know why they put 'easy access to the Ghost Zone on this lit. No matter what it's going to be either easy or difficult because of Jack and Maddie. Then them putting money on this list is kind of concerning. But personally, having a lot of money doesn't matter to me since I've lived out on the streets for so long, I know how to make the most out of my dollar. And then lastly, dealing with Pamela and Jeremy don't concern me that much. Sure they'll be a pain but dealing with Jack and Maddie will be _a lot_ worse."

She glanced over her list one last time before nodding curtly to herself. Her new list was verified.

 **Things that don't matter too much List:**

\- Being stuck in the same situation as Sam

\- No matter what I'll be able to get closer to Danny (Living at Fenton Works or at Manson's)

\- If most of the stories are true or not (I can easily remember stuff)

\- Easy access to lab and portal

\- Worrying about money (because I've lived on the streets for too long)

\- Dealing with Pamela and Jeremy

She glanced at her list one more time and wrote out the last list of things that mattered the most. Whether that was to her or just in general. Once they were written out she decided to reason out each point and whether it would be better with Danny or Ida.

"Vlad being able to get me back is huge. And though I know Danny's an amazing fighter there's no way the Fenton's could legally beat Vlad. I mean he's just too powerful any which way you look at it. And I guess Ida could help the Fenton's out but it would be pretty weird if she offered help. And who knows, Danny's always said that Jack still thinks that he and Vlad are the best of friends, they would probably just let Vlad take me in the first place." She sighed and wrote Ida's name next to the first bullet point.

The next mark on her list was dealing with Maddie and Jack. She went to write Ida's name next to their bullet point but pulled away just before her pen touched the paper. "If I was living in their house then I would be able to keep up on their weapons and experiments. But… well, that's it actually. Because I'd be nervous all the time if I was in the house. They'd ask a ton of questions, there would be two ghosts under their roof which would be more noticeable than Danny. Plus I'd probably have to deal with other ghost hunters more often. This one goes to Ida too. Especially since Pamela and Jeremy will be easier to deal with than the Fenton's.

"Now, living with or without Danny. I know that I definitely don't want to live _without_ him. But I do know that he barely spends time at Fenton Works anyway. And the trio is always together, which means I'm more likely than not, going to be with them. But it doesn't really matter where I lay down to sleep though. I guess. I would love to be living with Danny but I know that me and Sam would have a great time and it's not like I have that much time left to live under the same house since I'll be graduating in three and a half years and them in two and a half. So it matters but it doesn't. But if I live _with_ Danny then I have to deal with Maddie and Jack."

She paused, contemplating her last sentence before writing Ida's name down next to the third bullet point. The next bullet point made her sigh loudly to herself; insurance.

"I mean if I have to be realistic about this, Ida is the best way to go."

She groaned and flopped back onto Sam's pillows, and stared up at the ceiling.

"Danny's already mentioned that he mainly supports himself and Jazz. But I don't know if that's because they just don't care anymore or if they don't have the money that they say they do. I mean I'm sure they have enough money but he said that they're very concerned with their inventions and lab work not that he pretty much takes the money for the small things out of their bank account. But he's already so worried about Jazz and I don't want him to be even more worried about me. Okay, actually I know he's going to worry no matter what, but I don't want him to worry about taking care of me financially. It wouldn't be fair to him. Ida has the money. Not that I really care about myself exactly, but I just don't want Danny to be so worried and anything that would make it easier on him would be better in the long run."

She wrote Ida's name and moved on.

"Okay, if I choose Danny's story I'll have to worry about Maddie and Jack knowing Dawn. Which could be really problematic. But if I go with Ida's story then the only people I have to worry about would be Pamela and Jeremy. I'm sure that Jeremy knew David when he was younger, but with Ida backing me up I think it'll work out a lot easier. Plus considering if I went with the idea that David was my 'dad' then it really wouldn't matter because as Michelle I wouldn't have actually known them. Which would make choosing Ida's side the best idea because I seriously don't want to mess with the idea that Maddie would find out. And if Vlad's going to try and get me back, he'll reveal that I'm not part of their family in the first place and it'll never work. I don't want to stay hopeful for so long and then have it taken away. It's just gonna be best to stick with Ida's side."

So she wrote Ida's name next to that bullet point.

"Alright, Changing My Name." She sighed and began playing with the ends of her ponytail. "if I took Michelle's name I would definitely want to change it. I don't know about her last name though. I do like her last name but then it kind of goes into the same bullet point as using her name anyway. And I really don't want to use a dead girls name. She never got the chance to even live up to it. But I could use my own name if I do. Fenton. Danielle Fenton. Ellie Fenton. Ellie. Fenton. Hmm… kinda has a nice ring to it. But it sounds a lot like the name that Vlad wanted me to take.

"And even though I like being tied to Danny that way, I don't want to give Vlad the satisfaction. Which would mean I'd have to use Michelle's name. But maybe I'd only have to use it for a while. Then i could become a Manson. Or maybe she'd let me pick my own last name. Though I don't really know what that could be. Maybe I'll keep McNab to honor Michelle. I just can't keep _her_ name."

She wrote Ida's name next to 'changing her name' and Danny's name next to the idea of 'using Michelle's name' before moving onto 'court time and Foster Care'

She blew air heavily through her nose. "If I go with the Fenton's it'll more likely that I'll have to go into Foster Care for some time. Which plays into the fact that Vlad would try and get me back. And I'm not spending time in the court system. I mean Ida said she could probably get it done quickly and I probably would only have to go into court at least once or twice. Once if I'm lucky. My best bet would be Ida.

"Especially considering she has the right people to talk to and has the documents still. If I don't, then she said she could still get documents for me, but I couldn't do that. It wouldn't feel right. Though what she's offered is quite amazing in itself. I never knew that someone could be so openly caring like she is, compared to Danny she's like an actual angel. I think I'll have to get her something for her offer and her help; no matter what I choose."

She wrote Ida's name next to the two bullet points and was met with the last mark on her list. The toughest one she figured to come by.

"Where do I see myself in the future?" She leaned back against Sam's pillows again and played with the ends of her ponytail once more.

"My future… If I go to about 5 years, which would mean I'd be in college, I can see myself with Danny and Sam and uncle Tuck. I see myself hanging out with them and going to the movies and Valerie is with us – even if it's a far off hope, I'd want them to eventually trust each other. And me, Sam and Valerie are living in an apartment together while Danny and Uncle Tuck live in their separate one. I see myself studying to be a nurse… or, well I have always loved animals, I could try to be a vet. And I have friends to hang out with that go to school with me and I'm just living a good normal life. Well besides the ghosts, but that'll never stop happening.

"But then I can see myself going away, maybe to Chicago or maybe St. Louis like Jazz for school and I'll come home on the weekends and holidays to visit. But I don't know. I think I'd rather stay home… wow, I just used the word home." She smiled to herself. "That just sounds so nice. But anyway, I definitely want to go to college and make something of myself. _For myself_. Not for anybody else, but for _me_.

"So if I go to college, Danny's going to be trying to pay for it no matter what. And I really don't want to put that pressure on him. He's already so stressed about everything and I just know that it's going to get worse as time goes on. He even already has worry lines and a constant shade of purple under his eyes! And he's only _seventeen_. I just don't want to be a burden to him."

She groaned and sat up, leaning her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands. "I _want_ to stay with Danny. But I _need_ to stay with Ida. I know that he _wants_ me to as well, which I guess makes this decision a bit easier. I mean it's not like a change in name will change our relationship/ Though I don't really know what to call our relationship anymore. We're definitely _not_ like cousins and though we're very close we don't have too much of a similar situation to be called brother and sister. If anything I'd say he acts more like a worried Dad…" her eyes widened as the words fell from her mouth. "No… no that's not right. I mean, we're only two years apart. Technically. I'm just… just overthinking. Yeah. He's like a protective older brother. Yeah… that… that sounds right.

"Okay, _anyway_ ," She rolled her eyes at herself, "I would _love_ to stay with Danny, but if it prevents him from having an aneurism and a lower chance of Vlad trying to take me back then I'll just have to suck it up and live out Michelle's name for her. Give her name a chance to live a life she should have gotten

"Plus becoming Ida's great-niece would be beneficial to everyone. And I really like Ida and I love Sam, which pretty much seals the deal. And bunking with Sam would be pretty cool, and make her less lonely here with her parents and all. And then I'd _always_ get to see Danny and uncle Tuck, so it wouldn't be like I am actually _leaving_."

She let out another sigh, blowing through the side of her mouth and stared down at her paper. "Alright. Let's go tell them."

This time she turned intangible as she held onto her papers and landed back in the theater, making sure Sam's parents were nowhere in sight before turning tangible in front of them all. Ida quickly paused her movie, Tucker fully sat up from his chair and Danny and Sam got up from where they were lying together, snuggled on the couch.

"I've made my decision." She stated.

"For sure? You don't want to sit on it a bit longer?" Sam asked.

"I'm sure." Ellie said more confidently. "But I have a few terms or things I want to discuss, really."

"Okay." The four chorused

"I'm going with Ida's plan." She smiled self-assuredly.

It took a second but a smile split Danny's face and he was on her in an instant, wrapping her in an almost bone crushing hug. Ellie got her arms around him as best as she could.

"I'm so happy that you chose Ida. She can help you so much more than I can." He whispered into her ear.

"Alright, alright, give her room to breathe." Tucker chuckled and Ellie felt him start to pull Danny away and make his way into a hug for himself.

"Hey!" Danny objected and tried to hip chuck Tucker out of the way. "Wait your turn."

Ellie laughed and slipped out of their arms to go over to Sam, who wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She knew that would be the closest she'd get to a normal hug from Sam. "I think I'll let them duke it out."

"Good plan." Sam side smiled, watching as Danny held his arm around Tucker's neck and proceeded to give him a noogie as Tucker squealed for him to stop.

"Sometimes it's just fine to let boys be boys." Ida shook her head.

Ellie chuckled and got up from next to Sam to stand by Ida's chair. "I just want to say, thank you for opening up the way you did and for your kindness."

Ida smiled a warm smile and shook her head as if Ellie was a silly girl, "It's what anyone should do really. But I would never let anyone that's a part of this family," She used her hand to demonstrate the people in the room with them, "suffer or not have a place to go."

"You're a great person, did you know that?"

"I had a feeling." She shrugged, causing Sam to laugh and shake her head.

"Fine! You win, you win!" Tucker tapped out and Danny released him from the hold, chuckling as Tucker grumbled about too strong superhero ghosts.

"I guess this means I'm going to have to make a meeting with my lawyer to add to my will."

"Really?" Ellie asked in pure shock.

"Really. I'm going to have to make sure to add a fourth to the company."

"The company?" Danny asked intrigued as he plopped down on top of Tucker who had taken his chair back.

"Excuse me!"

"You're excused." Danny smirked down at his best friend. "But what do you mean, the company?" he questioned turning back to Ida.

"Well, I was going to wait until next summer to tell you but it wouldn't harm you now. Next summer I'm planning to not only train Sam but now the three of you in the workings of Manson Inc., that way when I get too old or pass away you will become the heads of the company."

"Wait, what?" Tucker asked aloud, mimicking the rest of the teenagers. "Really?

Ida nodded. "Really, really."

 **October 16th, 2014**

 **Thursday**

 **Manson Mansion: Theater**

 **5:20 p.m.**

* * *

Alright. I know. I know. Late again. I suck. But I was on vacation for 12 days, so fight me lol. So now I've decided instead of trying and failing at updating every Sunday I'm going to update every other Sunday. Starting with this past Sunday. So say I updated this past Sunday. This next Sunday, July 17 I won't update, but I'll update that following Sunday July 24th. You follow? I'm going to keep this up until I can do every Sunday again. I think I was just pushing myself too hard. Now this will give me two weeks, which seems to be a better alternative now.

 **So updates are now every other Sunday.**

Also I know I said that I would post lyrics to the chapters, but no one seems to be very interested in them so, I think I'll just stop explaining the lyrics I choose on here. If you really wanna know, please either PM me or add it to your review. If I get enough then I'll add them to the story. Otherwise I'll just PM you what my thoughts were on the lyrics I've chosen.

Thank you so all of my reviewers!I hope to hear from everyone once again! I love you guys so much! **The Talent, Rogue Deity Master, Capitolblonde, Blue11msu, bloody dragon fang, SamXDanny, Savirox, ShadowDragon357, crazyreader11, shugokage, CaptainDorito, sammansonrepilica**

I wanted to answer reviews but I really actually just wanted to get this chapter up. So if you were one to have a question pop up that needed answering in your review, I'll answer you in a PM or on the next chepter.


	33. Boring Birthday's

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or Teen Wolf or Pity Party by Melanie Martinez

* * *

 **Maybe if I knew all of them well**

 **I wouldn't have been trapped inside**

 **this hell that holds me**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Boring Birthday's**

 **Word count: 9,672**

 **10/24/16**

* * *

 **October 16th, 2014**

 **Thursday**

 **Casper High**

 **7:50 a.m.**

Sometimes Valerie wished that her mom was still alive. She missed the way her arms would wrap around her so tight she could barely breathe and the smell of coconut in her hair. Sometimes she wished that Phantom never ruined her life. Her and her father wouldn't have to be scraping by. Sometimes she wished that she never took Vlad's offer. Then she could earn an honest living and not be some man's piece in a game. Then on specific days such as the 16th of October for the past three years she's wished that she had never celebrated her birthday; that it had never passed without making a big deal of it. That she had not grown up to make such a production of such a simple day. She wished that she didn't like the attention as much as she did.

Now that she'd seen the errors of her ways she wanted to go about her birthday like every other day. But her dad still tried to make a big production out of it; she figured it was a way to make up to her for not being able to provide the large extravagant parties that she had grown up with since she was four years old. And it wasn't only her dad, but the few people that she still called 'friend'.

"Happy Birthday!"

"Shh!" Valerie quickly shushed Star who came up to her in the hallway that morning, bearing a sparkly wrapped present. "You're worse than my dad."

"Did he go all out again this year?" She smirked, still holding the present out to Valerie.

"Woke me up with my room decorated and he even made my favorite breakfast, before handing me a lunch box with my favorite soup _and_ gave me a present this morning."

"Hmm…" Star pursed her lips. "That doesn't sound too big. Kinda normal actually."

"All I really wanted was for this day to go by normally and only go up to Chicago like we used to the weekend of. But he keeps trying to make it a _huge thing_ again and I just want it to be _quiet_." Okay, so she actually liked the attention, but she really did want to keep it quiet.

"So you're saying that you don't want the present I got you?" Star smirked and waved the small box in front of her face.

Valerie shook her head, but let a small smile creep onto her lips. "I hate you."

"You love me." Star beamed.

Valerie grabbed the small present and peeled off the wrapping paper to reveal a plain white box. She opened the top to reveal five gift cards: Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Macy's and lastly a Visa gift card.

"Star…"

"No. No no no." Star shook her index finger from side to side. "It's your birthday I can get you whatever I want. And since I know that these are the stores you most frequent I figured gift cards would be a better choice this year so you can use the money on things that you might really need at the time. Though the Starbucks one is really there because I know how much you need your coffee."

Valerie placed the lid back on the white box and quickly pulled Star into a hug. "Thank you." She whispered into her best friends' ear.

"No problem. I'm not that much of a heartless bitch."

Valerie pulled away and laughed loudly at the bright smile on Stars face. "You keep telling yourself that, Twinkles."

Star blanched at the old nickname. "I thought that thing finally died out."

"Not likely." Valerie chuckled.

The bell shrilly rang, ending their conversation.

"Meet up later?" Star asked.

"I'll see you in class." Valerie nodded and they walked their separate way down the halls to their homerooms.

Valerie liked that she still had Star as her friend. Not that she hadn't made a few other friends but it was nice that she still had someone from before all the shit happened in her life; someone that was there for her backstory. She realized after some time her whole life had changed, that she never actually had any true friends when she had been rich and popular. Even Star hadn't been has close to her as she was now. But she _had been_ the only one to ask if she was okay and actually mean it.

She knew Star was definitely her closest friend, but she knew that now Danielle, or well Ellie, and her would become even closer since she would be staying in Amity Park; she hoped that they could become as close to her as she and Star were. But besides them she didn't have many friends. Danny still tried to be close to her, as did Tucker, but she didn't want to drag them into her crazy life any more than she had done so with Danny. She wanted to keep them separate, which was why she tried to keep her distance. Valerie had wanted to do the same with Star, but it was harder when she shared a deeper level of friendship with her than Danny and Tucker. But besides them she wasn't extremely close to anyone else. Valerie had a few acquaintances at work and she considered Sam to be under her acquaintance list, but she was actually okay with where she was in life among friends.

Thankfully Homeroom passed without any instances, ghost or otherwise, and she had a relatively peaceful morning. _Well, for her._

Once lunch hit her weird-dar seemed to pick up more than usual.

She was currently sitting beside Star at the dubbed group of 'popular' tables outside. She had only been 'allowed' to sit there because she used to be cool and Star pulled a couple of strings. She hadn't cared either way about sitting at the table, but she did care about sitting next to Star, so she let her fiend work her magic. She was barely listening as Star and Paulina discussed a new handbag of Paulina's – Valerie had much more important things to think about now then a simple accessory, even if she wouldn't admit it to herself that she still liked to talk about those things.

She was glancing around the quad as she usually did; on the search for ghosts. Even if she was wearing her radar detector on her wrist, she preferred being prepared than not. Typically lunch time was when they'd show up, and she knew that with the GIW there for two months that the attacks had grown less and less, but old habits die hard. She had let her gaze travel past Danny, Sam and Tucker's table easily, but something made her snap back to the group for a double take.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first. It looked as though they were enjoying their lunch and speaking to one another. She almost let it go as a fluke, but then she saw Danny reach across the table and patted the empty spot on the table twice before pulling his arm back. Odd. She focused more intently on what they were doing and their body language.

They were all faced towards the empty spot at the table and from where she sat she could only see Tucker's face and his eyes were looking at the one empty spot. Tucker laughed suddenly and elbowed the blank air where he was looking. She could see Danny and Sam's back and shoulders move as they laughed as well. But then like a switch their body language changed and they were facing each other and the empty seat at the table seemed to be forgotten.

Now Valerie knew she wasn't dumb. She knew that the little trio were friends with ghosts, even if Danny's parents were ghost hunters. She also knew that they would probably do anything for a ghost so it didn't wind up in her hands or the GIWs. So, she was 110% positive that a ghost had been sitting at their lunch table and they had conversed with it. The only thing she didn't know was why her ghost detector hadn't gone off. It had a range of 5 miles when she was at school unless she placed it at 10 – but that was rare – and one was about 20 feet from her. She would have to check it during Ghost 101 to make sure something hadn't gone haywire.

She wondered who they had been talking to. What could have been so important for a ghost to brave the GIW to speak with Danny, Tucker and Sam? She was distracted from those thoughts however as her eye caught Danny and Sam lacing their fingers under the table.

Valerie smirked; she knew there was _no way_ that those two had broken up. Sure she had seen the tabloids and the news and heard the gossip and what Star had told about them having to break up otherwise Sam would have had to be shipped off to Europe to attend some boarding school for punishment. Valerie also hadn't believed the whole fiasco with Phantom. She knew that Sam could be a bitch but there was no way that she would cheat on Danny in a million years. Especially when they had just gotten together. She does however believe that they broke up publicly to appease her parents.

Not that it was any of her business, but she was actually kind of proud of them for getting over their fear and confessed their feelings. At least she thought that's what had happened. She never actually asked them. Or Tucker. Valerie took note as they slid closer to one another and the idea to tell them to tone down their 'sneaky' forms of affection, formed in her mind because she knew there were plenty of assholes that would leak the story about Sam dating Danny _again_ and try to make it into some love triangle again. And Valerie really didn't want those rumors to pop up and have to go through all that shit. Again.

"Hey, you okay?" Star asked, nudging Valerie's shoulder, knocking her from the stare she had.

"Oh uh," She looked back to Star, "Yeah." She nodded. "Yeah, I'm good."

"Good." Star smiled at Valerie and she had to admit her stomach performed a small flip. "So, do you think you can help me with my biology homework before the lunch bell rings?"

"Of course." Valerie said. They didn't get very far into Star's biology homework before lunch was over and they were all heading off to gym.

Normally Valerie and the rest of the gym class would be outside considering the weather was still fairly nice, however this year Tetslaff decided to rearrange her schedule – which was pretty normal but still annoying.

"Listen up!" Tetslaff called them to attention and Valerie couldn't help rolling her eyes. "Since we're starting our 8th week of school, even though we started on a Wednesday, I've decided that instead of working through more sports activities we will be taking ourselves to the weight room."

Loud groans echoed in the gymnasium with a few whoops and hollers thrown in by the Football and Basketball players and of course the Wrestlers.

"But first, everyone's going to take a 4 lap warm-up around the gym."

This time everyone groaned but took off from where they stood to pull into the 4 lap jog. Valerie instantly took off ahead of everyone. She typically was the one keeping ahead of everyone, mainly because the cross country kids kept up an average pace. So, typically she was alone at the lead of the pack, keeping a good 30 to 40 feet in front of the next fastest runner; but she wasn't _always_ alone.

"Been a while since you've run without Danny and Tucker." She noted.

"Eh, they're too lazy." Sam breathed out easily, "And I can't run that slow unless I actually _want_ to."

"I can understand that."

"Is that why you don't run with Star?"

Valerie wondered at the question, mainly because they've rarely talked when they've both ran together. "Sort of. She can run, but she typically runs with Paulina."

"Queen Bitch." Valerie heard Sam mutter angrily after they passed Tetslaff.

Valerie gave a huffed laugh, "Got that right."

After that things returned to normal and they continued to run in silence, keeping good pace with the other. They ended up lapping most of the class that was in the back before finishing the laps with a yelled,

"Great job, Manson. Gray. Still my top runners." From Tetslaff.

When everyone finally caught up, they all got a drink before making their way to the weight room.

"Now I know you all know how to use the equipment so I'm not going to waste time in explaining it all again." Tetslaff growled at the front of the room where a white board and desk stood. But behind them rows upon rows of workout machines stood. "We'll be splitting up into groups with only 4 or 5 people of your choosing and we'll… Quiet!" She yelled out to quiet the excited teens. "We'll be doing 8 stations with everyone doing three sets of Reps." She picked up a black erase marker and began writing the machines on the board. "We'll have the squat station, barbells, bench press, cable-pull machine, Lat Pull down, leg-extension, weight ball station and abdominal bench.

"We'll try to get through as many as we can today, and what we don't get done we'll finish out tomorrow. Remember you must have a spotter at all times. If I see you lifting weights without a spotter you'll sit down at this desk here and write a 5 page report on why spotting someone is something to _always_ be done. Alright, split up and get started." She waved them off and wrote the rest of the rules on the board.

Though Valerie wasn't too excited about being in a group with Paulina, Dash and Kwan, she turned around to join Star's group but was stopped short when she saw that another girl already joined and Star was telling Paulina that they had too many with Valerie in their group.

"Valerie's not in our group. Kayla is." Paulina said in a chipper tone, but her eyes glared holes into Valerie.

"Well Kayla can…"

"It's okay, Star. I'll just go join another group."

"But," She turned her large blue eyes to her but Valerie only shook her head. She didn't want to jeopardize Star's friendship with Paulina, no matter how much she hated Paulina. "Okay." Star sighed.

Valerie gave her one last smile before turning back to face the room to see what options she had; she was instantly drawn to the trio, they were still trying to get a 4th person for their group. She made her way over to them and Tucker quickly spotted her.

"Valerie! Awesome, we were looking to get another person." Tucker smiled brightly at her. She couldn't help the now warm smile that made up her face. It was easy to admit to herself now that she had actually gotten to _know_ Tucker that he wasn't as bad as what people thought and that she might have a slight crush on him. Slight. _Very_ slight.

"Good, cause I need a group."

"Then I guess it's good there's only three of us. Where should we start? Danny asked, smiling warmly at her.

"The weight Ball Station is still empty." Sam mentioned before moving to said station. Tucker groaned in retaliation.

"But I hate weight balls!"

"Just think if you get it over and done with _now_ you won't have to focus on doing it _later_." Valerie tried to placate.

"Exactly what I was thinking." Sam smirked and picked up the 10lb weight ball.

"Okay, but what are we doing with them?" Danny asked, and looked at the other 4 balls on the ground.

Valerie turned to look at the board. "We're supposed to do group passes facing each other with the 10lb ball and then with our back to each other with the 15lb ball and apparently go for a minute each round three times."

Tucker groaned while Sam chuckled and picked up the 10lb ball. "Come on Tucker-uni, you're strong enough to handle 10lbs." She tossed the ball at him.

"Ugh." Tucker hunched over as the ball came in contact with his stomach. "Maybe I could if you didn't throw so hard."

"Where would be the fun in that?"

"How about we form our circle. I'll toss to Sam, who'll pass to Valerie who'll toss to Tucker who'll pass to me." Danny said, stepping up and grabbed the ball easily from Tucker's grip.

"But I love throwing things at Tucker." Sam smirked at him, but got into a circle and Valerie followed, falling into their group dynamic easily. She could feel the tension leave her shoulders from being in a constant group of people she didn't like and into one that she could more _easily_ relate to.

They made their way smoothly through the exercise with minimal damage to Tucker from Sam. She was quite impressed with him actually. She had noticed of course how much taller and filled out he had gotten, but she hadn't realized that he'd gotten stronger. She had expected for him to gain some form of physical strength from having to deal with Sam for so many years, but she didn't believe he could show that strength so smoothly.

"So… Val, haven't talked much since school started." Tucker spoke from beside her as they watched Sam doing the leg press.

"Yeah, I've been really, really busy." She told him a bit down in tone.

"Work?"

"Pretty much. I'm on my third job now."

"Didn't you already have three jobs?"

Her brows furrowed. She technically had four jobs now but she was fairly positive that no one knew about her ghost hunting job. "Um, no. I just started working at my old Dojo a few months ago."

"Oh." He said as if just realizing his mistake, "So the Nasty Burger, the tea shop, which is where again?"

"The Queen's Dragon."

"Ah!" His eyes widened in recognition and something else Valerie didn't recognize, "and the Dojo?"

"Yep. I'm thinking about quitting at the Nasty Burger to pick up more classes at my Dojo, especially since I've been asked to help with the competing girls."

"That's great!" Tucker beamed down at her and Valerie shared his smile. "At least then you'll be doing something that you really like."

"Yeah." She nodded, "Though for a while I'll be assisting in instruction for a few years until I get the way of things again and I get my instructor certification from WTF."

"And WTF doesn't stand for 'what the fuck' does it?"

"World Taekwondo Federation." Valerie, Danny and Sam stated simultaneously, ignoring Tucker's joke. Sam released the leg press and got up to join them.

Valerie raised her eyebrows at Danny. "I know how Sam knows what it's called, but how do _you_ know?"

Danny chuckled and took his turn on the leg press. "Well, Maddie used to be an instructor before she had me and Jazz. And I know that you told me way back when in Freshman year in one of our late night chats."

She quickly noticed a slight tension in Danny's pressing of the weight before resuming at the same weight as Sam had. She wondered if he had realized it was too heavy for him. "You know, that's probably not a good thing to say around your girlfriend."

"What!" Sam and Danny looked over at her with eyes wide, while Tucker began laughing loudly. Danny stopped pressing on the weight as soon as he yelled and it slammed to the attached metal piece and his knees bent quickly.

"Fenton!" They all jumped at Tetslaff's booming voice. "What have I said about letting weights slam!"

"Sorry! Won't happen again." Danny called back quickly.

"Look, I don't know what you heard but we aren't dating anymore." Sam turned to face Valerie her eyes lit with purple fire, but she could see the hidden fear in them, that they had been caught.

"Is that so?" Valerie folded her arms over her chest and smirked, "Then why did I see you tow trying to secretly hold hands at lunch?"

"I told you guys you had to tone it down." Tucker snapped at the couple.

"You saw that?" Danny questioned, ignoring Tucker, while Sam on the other hand shushed him.

"Well, it wasn't like your hands were very well hidden. If you're going to keep dating in secret you're gonna have to drop any and all forms of couple-ness at school, no matter how much you want to hold hands or make out against the lockers or whatever."

"See!" Tucker exclaimed again and Danny and Sam shot him glares. " _Don't look at me like that_. I've been telling you guys this since day one of this operation to tone it down and lo and behold _somebody_ noticed. Thank the gods it was Valerie."

"We're not _that_ bad are we?" Danny questioned.

"You could tone it down a couple notches." Valerie shrugged. "I'm just saying." She held her hands up, palms facing towards Danny, "That if you don't want some stupid ass teenager looking to get money from selling the story that you're still together to start the whole Phantom and Sam thing again, then I suggest that you stop being so touchy-feely all the time."

"I told you…" Sam said, shooting Danny a look.

"No you didn't." He rolled his eyes and sat back down on the machine to finish his reps.

She scoffed, "Well, I _thought_ it." Danny flipped her the bird, which she readily gave back to him; Valerie felt out of the loop of a joke, though she wasn't sure what the joke actually entailed.

"So, how's your dad?" Tucker quickly changed the subject; she let the change happen and wondered if they didn't actually like talking about the subject of being a couple or if it was just weird speaking with her about it.

"He's doing good actually. Working a lot, but good." She shrugged, but it set off a nice conversation throughout the rest of gym class.

She found it easy to keep up conversations with them and though most of their topics consisted of her and Tucker's lives, she missed their interactions. But she knew she couldn't get as close to them like she had been in Freshman year. She didn't want to drag them up in the ghost hunting business.

Okay, so that was kind of a lie. She had seen them out when she had been hunting too often, but she knew that they were more friends of ghosts. She saw them speaking to ghosts and trying to save them from her, even if they didn't know who she was. She truthfully didn't want to see their opinion of her change because she captured and fought ghosts, instead of helping them. The only one she _actually_ liked and helped was Danielle, but she couldn't help what she was going through, she was something that she was sure ghosts didn't like since Danielle was still human and she really wanted to help Danielle because if Vlad was still out to get her, then Valerie had to help her in any possible way. It was one thing to hurt a ghost, but another to hunt a human.

But she knew that helping one ghost wasn't going to help her in bettering the trio's opinion of her if they found out about her secret life.

The only one other than her father that knew, was Star and that had been a complete accident. But didn't change that fact. But Star was different, the only ghost she actually liked was Phantom, so Valerie never told her when she fought with him. But she couldn't do that with Tucker and Danny. Or Sam even. She didn't want to take the chance of them finding out. But it nice to feel close to them again. Even if for only a little bit.

After gym class she was making her way to her Spanish 4 class when her tracker buzzed on her wrist. She blew air out of her nose in frustration. She had a quiz that day. But it buzzed five times on her wrist letting her know that the level that her tracker had picked up was a level 5 ghost.

She groaned, but turned and made her way towards one of the stairwells to go out a door once she reached the first floor to the outside where the dumpsters were settled. She quickly changed and set her sights out for the ghost on her sled.

She didn't have to wait long. She had barely gotten down the street from the school when a large hawk or eagle looking bird flew across her path, followed in short by none other than Phantom. Great. Now she'd have to work with him to get rid of the humongous bird ghost before she could attack him. Lure him into a false sense of security.

She followed after them shooting at the gigantic bird. It took them a lot longer to take down than she though. For being so large, it sure was agile.

"Good job." Phantom smiled at her, puffing a little at how fast he had to fly. Valerie never understood why he pretended to breathe around her. It just freaked her nerves out any time he did it.

Instead of answering him aloud, she retaliated by shooting her ectogun at him.

"Hey!" He protested, not moving quickly enough and got hit on his shoulder. "We were doing some awesome teamwork!"

She rolled her eyes and shot him again. "Idiot, ghost." She grumbled under her breath.

"Look I don't have time to fight today." Phantom huffed and she wished he stayed still so she could get the shot into his core.

"Me either, but you don't see me complaining." She shot another blast and smiled when she got a hit in on the same shoulder.

"Okay, so since _you_ don't have time and _I_ don't have time, why don't we just call it a draw and move on with our day."

"Hmm…" She pretended to contemplate, making Phantom stop. "Nope." And shot him again. "Don't think so."

"Valerie! Come on!"

"Begging? Really? That's low even for you." She smirked triumphantly when she got him smack dab in the middle of his chest where she knew a ghosts core was positioned.

"Whatever it takes." He coughed out. Why did he keep up the façade?

He turned invisible and Valerie quickly turned on the infrared settings of her glasses, so she could see him, even though he was invisible she could use his freezing core temperature to determine where he was. Before she could shoot him the bell from the school sounded shrilly. She checked the time and was shocked to see that that had been the bell to announce the end of her Spanish class. Well, shit.

"You're lucky, Phantom." She sneered before turning around, knowing that he wouldn't shoot her and made her way back to the school and hurried into Ghost 101. If today hadn't been the day they were going to start training how to fight ghosts she would have kept up the fight with Phantom. She had been having good luck in her hits, but today was not the day sadly. But she had other times to try and get him; that's typically how she viewed it.

She sat down just as the bell rang, taking her usual seat at the front of the classroom. A relieved breath whistled through her teeth. She quickly wondered if she could get Agent Z to get her Spanish teacher to let her take the quiz she missed since she had been out capturing a ghost.

Agent Z called the rowdy class to order before he began speaking on the subject of the day's lesson. "Today, we will be starting on learning self-defense ideas and protection protocols when you encounter a ghost. Because it is not a matter of _if_ but a matter of _when_ you will encounter a hostile ghost. We will be meeting for class on the wrestling mats form now on. Let's go ahead and head on over. Everyone grab your things and follow me to the wrestling room."

Valerie sighed but stood up with her things. She was about to move towards Star to walk with her when Tucker suddenly appeared next to her.

"How was Spanish?"

"Uh," She had been completely caught off guard by his sudden appearance and question. "It was… fine. Filled with a lot of Spanish." She caught Star's eye, who was giving her a questioning look. Valerie only shrugged in response.

"That's funny." Tucker chuckled lightly, She could just make out a slight nervousness to his tone. "So nothing interesting happened in Spanish class?" He pressed further.

Valerie turned her look away from Star to Tucker, "Uh, _no_." She emphasized. Did he know something that she didn't? Did he know she skipped?

"Tucker! Walk with me dude. I need a better understanding on what we did in government today." Danny suddenly appeared on Tucker's other side, an arm thrown over the barely shorter boys shoulders.

"What, but!" Except Danny pulled him away from Valerie towards the front of the group, moving through the hallways back towards the gym where the wrestling room was also located.

"Sorry." Sam took Tucker's place next to her shoulder, "You know how Tucker can get." Before moving past her and up to meet the boys.

What the hell just happened?

That had to have been the oddest confrontation with the trio yet. She shook her head and finally made her way over next to Star.

They walked for another minute before Agent Z unlocked the door and they headed inside to the wrestling room, with black padded mats along the floor and halfway up the walls. They set their bags on the bleachers and anyone who didn't have tennis shoes with them, took their shoes off as well per Agent Z's request before meeting Agent Z on the black mats adorned a red outline of a raven on the middle of the floor.

"Spread out and listen up." Agent Z stood in the center of the Raven and everyone moved quickly at his authoritative voice, around the mats.

"This section of our class will last until I deem that you all do not need this study every class period. There will still be homework given as well as projects, however those will come at a much later time.

"Now," He began weaving though all of them, hands behind his back, boots falling heavy, remind Valerie of a military general. "The first thing to understand when fighting is to _always keep moving_. Especially with a ghost. You stop for one second and that could be your end. The ghosts will be able to lock onto you and take your energy. With that…"

"Agent Z!" Kwan raised his hand high and called out causing Valerie and the rest of the class to turned and look at him. He blushed and his hand dropped in embarrassment. "Uh…"

"Yes, Kwan?"

"Uh, well what I was gonna say was, that I don't remember us talking about ghosts taking our energy or whatever. Do we even have energy? I'm kinda confused here…" He scratched the side of his head in frustration.

"You're right." Agent Z began walking through them again. "I've brushed over the topic during lecture, but I've never delved deep into its issues. Nathan," He called out, "What does a ghost sustain its' self with?"

"Um, ectoplasm?" He answered a bit unsure.

"Correct! A ghost is unable to get ectoplasm in our world because our world is the flip side of the their world. Is that correct, Mikey?"

"Yes."

"Yes." Agent Z stopped a few people over from Valerie. "Now, when a ghost tries to sustain itself over in our world it has to pull energy from somewhere. Where is that, Valerie?"

She blanked for a second as all eyes turned to look at her, but she quickly shook herself from the stares and answered the question, "Our own energy, sir. Our own life forces. They take a little bit of emotion, typically fear because it produces the highest energy source in our bodies at the time to sustain themselves while they're here."

"Very nicely put. A fun fact to know, a lot of stronger ghosts will attack lower level ghosts and I guess in a gruesome word, _eat_ the lower level ghost to sustain themselves in our world. That is typically a better choice than feeding off our emotions." Agent Z began walking through them again, "But yes, Valerie's correct. A ghost will try to take your energy so as to not go back into the Ghost Zone. Which is why this class is extremely important.

"Fear is the strongest energy and the only one that registers in to a ghost to take. This class section is essentially to help you not energize fear for them to feed off of, by making you more comfortable with the ability to fight."

Murmurs flew up in the room over this information and Agent Z let them talk it out for a moment before calling them to attention once again.

"Like I said earlier it is important to always keep moving when a fight with a ghost occurs. Fighting a ghost will not help you defeat it, only if you have a weapon do you have a chance. _But_ , fighting if you have to will give you the chance to escape. Because when facing off the supernatural as a human, you can't fight fair. You have to bend the rules a bit. But _only_ when it comes to fighting ghosts.

Valerie was fairly certain that what he just said was actually from a Teen Wolf episode. But he did have a good point. She always had to out-weapon the ghosts she fought and she fought dirty practically all of the time.

"But first and foremost, the most important thing I want you all to get from this is that running should always be your first priority. This is why I'm going to talk with Tetslaff and have you start by running a half mile every day."

Everybody groaned including Valerie, herself. She liked running, really, but to do it under Tetslaff's watch was like a death sentence.

"I know, I know." Agent Z barely tried to placate, "But it will be the best outcome later down the road. Now, let's get started." He reached his spot back over the red outlined Raven. "I will be dividing you into groups of two. I have a bowl filled with girls and a hat filled with boys names. Girls will be with girls and boys will be with boys. There will be one group with a boy/girl duo. When I call your name I want you to go stand with your partner."

Valerie mentally crossed her fingers that she didn't end up with someone she hated.

Agent Z stuck his hand in one of the small bowls and pulled out the first name, "Mackenzie and… Rose." Both girls smiled at the other in excitement and met at one spot on the floor. Then Agent Z continued on with the girls. Everything was fairly calm with the girls until he reached Paulina.

"Paulina will be with… Sam."

"What!" Both girls screeched and Valerie didn't know which one she should feel sorry for.

"You're kidding me!"

"I am _not_ partnering with _her_!"

"We'll kill each other!"

"She's gonna kill me!"

"Girls!" Agent Z raised his voice interrupting their frenzied concern. "The groups are final and that is that."

"But…" They both tried to protest again.

"Final. Please go stand next to the other."

They both grumbled and met together on the mats, making sure to look away from the other.

"Now that that's settled, let's move on." He huffed out and pulled his white suit coat down to smooth out the creases. He continued to pull out the names till he got down to the last few.

"The last full group is, Hayden and… Maria."

Both cheerleaders, Valerie rolled her eyes then quickly realized that her name hadn't been called yet.

"Now, the last girl is, Valerie." He pulled her name out of the bowl then reached over into the boys hat. "And your partner is, Danny."

Valerie turned to look at him and saw that he already began making his way over to her. She couldn't believe her luck! What were the chances that she didn't have to be with someone terrible. Or worse, Nathan! Though she was happy he quieted down on his crush for her, it was still prevalent.

"Hey." Danny said once he reached the spot next to her.

"How lucky are we?"

"Pretty lucky." He shrugged in agreement. "Poor Sam, though." He glanced to Valerie's left where Sam and Paulina stood away from each other, still glaring at opposite sides of the room.

"I wouldn't want to stick Paulina with my worst enemy which is funny because she practically is."

They looked away from them and back to Agent Z who was still calling names. "Personally, I think it'll do Sam some good to be stuck with her. Get some of her pent up frustration out."

"Maybe she'll get in a good hit."

Danny chuckled warmly, "Oh, she totally would. But she's not going to, she doesn't want to get detention again."

"Oh! That's right. They both got long detentions, right?"

"About a week." Danny shrugged, "Not like it helped any."

"Eh," Valerie folded her arms across her chest, "Maybe this will."

Danny mumbled a little too low for her to hear, but she was fairly certain that he said, 'doubt it'.

Valerie listened as Agent Z finished making the last few groups of boys, before he put down the hat and called them to attention once more.

"We'll be starting simple today. I'm going to be pulling ideas from a mix of boxing and martial arts for the first week and a half. When I feel you've gotten down what we're doing fairly well, we'll move on.

"We will also be watching how certain ghosts move in Amity Park to study what they do and see who can determine the best way to take them down. But that will be for a later day. A _much_ later day. Also for later down the road, sometime next week, we will start training with wooden weapons.

"For today however we will start with basic forearm to forearm hit. We're doing this because when fighting you don't want to use your fists as much as you think. Your elbows are sharper and you can get more of an impact and for you guys especially, we don't want you breaking a bone. Now, everyone make fists with both of your hands." Everyone quickly followed his instructions.

Valerie looked at Danny and saw that his thumbs were tucked inside of his fist, "Danny," she whispered, quickly getting his attention.

"What?" he whispered back.

"Put your thumbs outside of your fists. Place them in front of your fingers." She lifted up one of her hands to demonstrate what she meant. She saw the recognition in his eyes and quickly fixed his hands.

"Thanks."

"No problem."

Valerie found that doing the basic drills Agent Z had them doing was quite boring. She found herself zoning out as he explained the importance of keeping elbows in, fists up and feet far enough apart to not get knocked over easily. Even when they began to touch their forearms to each other's opposite side, Valerie found herself zoning and letting her body do the drill while her mind went towards thinking about what she had to do for work at the Nasty Burger.

She noticed Agent Z walking amongst the groups and she paid enough attention on what Danny was doing to give him pointers on what to fix as they continued their ministrations. But she wasn't as focused as she should be and continued making her list of 'to do' items.

"…kay?"

She wondered if her friends would pull a prank as per usual birthday tradition at the Nasty Burger. They pulled one on Frank for his birthday in September…

"Valerie?"

"What?" She asked in automatic response to hearing her name and tuned back in to find that Danny had stopped performing the drill with her, "Uh, sorry. I think I zoned out." She smiled sheepishly and fiddled with the hem of her t-shirt.

Danny let the side of his mouth pull up into a small smile. "It's okay. But uh, Agent Z said we're going to move on now."

Oh! She turned towards where Agent Z stood in the middle again, a blush rising to her cheeks. She hadn't realized how zoned out she was to miss that everyone had stopped in their basic workouts and was waiting for Agent Z to give them further instructions. "Thanks."

Danny gave her that same small smile, before turning his attention to the experienced Ghost Hunter.

"So, we've worked on arms, now we'll work on our legs. As I walked around the room I've taken chalk and marked X's on the walls. Enough for each group. I want you all to find an X with your partner after I give you instruction on how to do this exercise.

"Everyone start with their stance a little further than shoulder length apart." Valerie shifted her weight easily, quickly finding her fighting stance and bent her knees and smirked when Agent Z told the others to do the same thing.

"Bring your hands up like we did earlier, with fists in the dagger position. We are going to kick out with our right foot first. Do not point your toes. Your goal is to hit the X with your heel. Remember keep your core squeezed tight, so you can get more power into your kick and so that you also don't fall over. I want everyone to do one practice kick. He demonstrated the kick with his right foot and everyone followed suit.

"Good. Now find an X and get started. 10 on your right leg, then switch with your partner. Then do 10 on your left and switch again. Keep going until you hit 30 kicks on each leg. I will be making my way through to help you out."

They found an X easily and Valerie decided to go first; she told Danny to watch her form and do his best to mimic what she did. She quickly did her 10 reps on her right leg, hitting the X expertly with her heel before opening it up to Danny.

She watched him carefully, wanting him to learn this well. She figured if he could actually fight then he could actually go up against Dash and maybe not lose.

"Keep your arms in." He instantly pulled his elbows into his sides, following her instruction. She knew that Dash didn't beat up on him as much anymore given that Danny now stood practically 3 inches taller than him, but that didn't mean that Dash still didn't pick a fight with him. If anything she noticed that Dash took a greater satisfaction in beating down an opponent taller than him. She couldn't stand him. She also couldn't stand the fact that Danny let it keep happening.

She wanted to ask him about it, but she figured that now the best thing she could do was help him get a few fighting techniques down. Maybe she could find time on the weekend to help Danny and Tucker. She hated seeing them defenseless. She was just happy that Sam knew how to fight.

Wait.

Sam _did_ know how to fight! She looked away from watching Danny's foot hit the X to find Sam a few groups down from them. She was currently hitting her X with dead accuracy and her form was as flawless as her own. She turned away to find Tucker on the other side of the room. She watched him doing the exercise and was surprised to find his form and kick almost as good as Sam and her own.

She snapped back to Danny and observed him throw his weight into the kick. His form was almost perfect, he kept an elbow out but as she looked closer she could see he moved in as he kicked and then as if remembering not to he pulled the elbow away from his side. His kick was lazy and it looked as though he was just going through the motions.

Oh, that sly devil.

"Danny, do you know how to fight?"

"What?" He asked turning towards her mid kick, completely missed the wall and since his stance was thrown off, fell to the ground instantly catching the attention of the people surrounding them, which happened to include Dash and a few football buddies.

They started pointing and laughing, following Dash's lead. "Look boys, I think Fentino finally found his rightful place. On the ground and in the dirty sweat of others." That caused most of the class to laugh loudly, now having noticed Dash making fun of Danny.

Danny growled in annoyance and pushed himself up off the floor and stood with his arms crossed next to Valerie.

"Mr. Baxter, I expect you to keep your opinions to yourself. You know what will happen if I hear you making a derogatory comment to a fellow classmate again."

Dash gritted his teeth. "Yes, Agent Z."

"Good." He then turned to look at Danny, "You alright, Danny?"

"Yeah, Just lost my footing."

"Alright then." Agent Z gave a small nod of his head, "Get back to those kicks. When you're done come sit in the middle of the floor."

Danny let out a sigh and turned to look at Valerie.

"So… can you?" she arched her brows questioningly.

"Shouldn't you be doing your left foot kicks?"

Valerie rolled her eyes and began her kicks, but she wasn't going to drop it. "So, can you?"

"What makes you think I can?" He was looking away from her, she noticed a glaze fell slightly over his eyes, but she didn't care much about why at the moment.

She smirked and hit the X for every reason she brought up. "One: Sam knows how to fight so I'm fairly sure she taught you and Tucker. Two: Tucker's form is better than yours. He actually looks to be doing it correctly and I know that Michael is in the marching band and that's all he does so he can't be giving Tucker pointers. Three: now that I actually focused, I can tell your doing the slacking off on purpose."

"Have you thought that maybe Sam only showed _Tucker_ how to fight?"

"If that were true, where'd you learn to _act_ like you can't fight?" She hit her last X and moved aside gesturing for him to take his turn.

"But I _can't_ fight." His arms went wide and his voice pitched higher than normal.

"Mhmm. I think I'd believe that more if Sam wasn't your best friend. I'm sure you can't fight _well_ , but you _can_ fight. Which begs the question, why don't you pull out those fighting moves on Dash?"

"You don't want to get into that, Val."

Her jaw tightened, "Like hell I do." She took a step closer to him and dropped her voice lower than she already was, "why do you let Dash beat up on you?"

She watched his eyes practically flash, "Seriously, Valerie, don't get into it."

"And why _not_?"

"Because it leads down a path that you don't want to follow." He crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at her, for a split second she felt a shiver run down her spine.

Her mind jumped to the first terrible thing, "You're not doing anything illegal are you?"

He scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Of course not."

"Then what the hell…"

"Are we done over here?" Agent Z appeared next to them, pulling Valerie out of the little world of their argument.

"Uh, no." Valerie answered when Danny didn't. "I was just giving Danny some pointers to help him with kicking with his left leg."

"Good, good." The Agent smiled. "I'm happy you're able to share the knowledge of your talents Valerie." He nodded at her before moving away from them once again.

She watched as Danny sighed and took his spot at the X. She watched as his stance stood perfect and his elbows stayed in. She watched as his body tightened. She watched as his leg kicked out and hit his heel perfectly on the X. She watched as he executed the kick as flawlessly as Agent Z.

"I _let him_ keep me as his punching bag because," He performed another expert kick, "it keeps him and most of the other football players from bullying," another kick, "people like Mikey or Nathan or gods forbid Tucker." He hit the X perfectly again. "I can take the beatings. I don't want anyone else to have to suffer through high school like I have." He sent out another kick with more force than required.

Valerie didn't have much to say to that except, "You have one hell of a hero complex."

Danny faltered in his kick, but he didn't fall this time. "You know," he tone much friendlier than before, "Sam and Tucker tell me the same thing."

"As they should."

Danny blew air out of his nose that sounded similar to a laugh but didn't comment any further. Valerie let him have his silence, satisfied to have gotten her answer. They remained that way through the rest of class. Valerie was satisfied that when Danny continued to perform his kicks, that he did them correctly.

When they finished they quietly made their way over to the middle of the floor where a few groups stood already finished. They didn't have to wait much longer for the rest of the class to finish.

"Good job today class. For homework tonight I want you all to write a one page paper, double spaced, about what you learned today and how you personally find this section of the class, useful or not useful. Due tomorrow before class. We will review what we learn today, tomorrow, as well as begin on mental exercises."

The bell ran shrilly and everyone scrambled to grab their things.

"Don't forget the paper and I expect everyone to have on tennis shoes tomorrow!" He called after them.

Valerie grumbled under her breath. She didn't have enough time to include an extra assignment. She would have to re-plan her homework schedule for the night.

She quickly met up with Star to tell her she had to cover the end of someone's shift at the Queen's Dragon and would catch up with her after she got done at the Nasty Burger. Afterwards she found a secluded area before activating her suit and board to fly to work. She was still trying to save up enough to buy a car, but truthfully she liked flying a lot more than dealing with road traffic.

Thankfully though on her sled she got there much quicker than if she had a car to drive. When she entered through the back entrance she was met with a loud "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, VAL!" from her coworkers and a slice of the lemon pound cake they sold.

She was ecstatic to see that they had remembered and quickly ate her slice of cake before she got settled into work. Once six o'clock hit though her shift ended and she had thirty minutes to make it across to the Nasty Burger.

As per Nasty Burger tradition they _did_ pull a prank on her by freezing her house key in the meat locker. She had to sit it by the grill to get the block of ice surrounding her key to melt enough to get it out. Only she found out that it was in-fact _not_ her key and had to go search for it again and found that they had actually frozen her key in a _much larger_ block of ice and it took her that much longer to get it out.

She finally made it home just as her watch dinged to inform her that it was 12 am. She didn't call out to her dad since she knew he would be finished running the night security around six in the morning. She was happy to find a note written on the coffee table for her wishing her a Happy Birthday and that their plans for the weekend were still on and if she was hungry he left a container of mashed potatoes and pork chops in the fridge for her.

She tiredly heated up the mashed potatoes and pork chops, and then moved on to her room to get started on her homework. She had sat down on her bed and pulled out her math homework when she was startled by a knock on her window.

"What the… Danielle?"

Sure enough, there was Danielle in her human form crouched on her fire escape, smiling and waving at her. "Hi! Can I come in?"

"Uh," Valerie looked around her room before nodding and got up to let her in.

"Cool!" She smiled as she climbed through and stood on Valerie's carpeted floor. Then just as quickly her face turned serious. "Look, I wanted to apologize for the other night. I'm hoping we can put aside our differences and still be friends." She stood sheepishly by the window. Valerie was a bit dumbstruck by what she said until the words officially caught up with her.

"We've always been friends. That's never going to change. But I don't think I'm ever going to be friends with Phantom."

"Not even if you're on the same side trying to fight Vlad together?" Danielle asked her innocently.

Valerie shook her head and reminded herself to check on the real reason why Vlad wanted Phantom so badly. "I don't think so, girlie."

"Alright." She sighed and looked away from her for a second before turning back, "But we're still good right? I know you just said but…"

Valerie grinned, "Yeah." And nodded her head, "we're still good."

Danielle instantly tackled her in a hug. Valerie wrapped her arms around the younger girl and embraced her as well. When Danielle pulled her tighter into the hug she felt something sharp pushing into her side.

"Uh, Danielle, do you have something in your hand?"

"Oh!" She pulled away quickly; her blue eyes wide and bright and held out a small box wrapped in 'Happy Birthday' paper, towards her. "I, uh, got you a present. It's your birthday _today_ , right?"

"Yeah, but you didn't have to get me anything." She said and slowly took the box from Danielle's outstretched palms.

"It's okay. I wanted to." She shrugged.

"Well, thank you." She smiled at Danielle and then peeled off the 'Happy Birthday' wrapping paper.

"Okay, now you _seriously_ didn't have to get me anything." She was shocked to find a pair of apple earbuds under the paper.

"I remembered that you said when I was here last that your old pair got crushed from a fight with a ghost or something. I figured you hadn't gotten another pair, so I figured this would be perfect!" she beamed excitedly at her.

"Thank you." She breathed out. Danielle had been right about that. Valerie had gone out and gotten a cheap pair since that was all she could afford. She wondered how Ellie was able to pay for them, but decided that she just really didn't want to know so they could avoid a fight. So she decided to change their subject. "Are you okay?"

"I'm doing good." But apparently she didn't get the hint that Valerie wanted to steer away from her birthday. "Do you have any big plans for such a special day?"

"Actually, yes." Valerie moved to sit on her bed and Danielle followed. "My dad and I are going up to Chicago this weekend to see the Chicago Int. Film Festival. It used to be something between me and my mom but my dad's been taking me since she passed away a few years back. It's a little out of price range right now, but I've been saving and I know my dad's been saving to go each year."

"That's so cool! When you get back you're going to have to tell me all about it."

Valerie chuckled at her enthusiasm. "Of course."

"Great." Danielle beamed and leaned forward to give Valerie another hug. She obliged, but she let go after a few seconds.

"Alright, well, sadly I have to go. But I definitely wanted to give you your present, even if it's a little past the _actual_ day. I hope you have fun at the festival. Let me know when you get back." She stood up and flashed into her ghostly form.

"I will." Valerie confirmed.

Danielle gave her a two finger salute and flew towards the window and turned intangible. Except instead of going through it, she hit the ghost shield and was shocked backwards.

"Oh, shit! Sorry!" Valerie quickly reached over to her night stand and hit the button to release the apartment of the ghost shield. "Are you okay?"

"No problem." Danielle chuckled and picked herself up off the ground, rubbing her head slightly. "Just a bump. But I'm fine. Okay, round two. See ya, Val."

"Bye, Danielle." She waved and once she was sure she had passed through the window and into the night, Valerie pressed the green button on her remote to activate the ghost shield once more.

 **October 17th, 2014**

 **Friday Morning / Thursday Night**

 **Valerie's Room**

 **12:40 a.m.**

* * *

 **Uh hi guys! *Hides behind my computer as food is thrown***

 **I'm so sorry for my long ass haitus! I swear I didn't plan it (clearly by the last note I left last chapter).**

 **So we've passed the one-year anniversary for this story! I can't believe it's been over a year! It just seems to have flown by - and I definitely wanted more chapters to have been posted, but well, that didn't fucking happen! *sunglasses emoji* *crying/laughing emoji***

 _Thank you for your continued support and still sticking with this story! Believe me we have a shit long way to go! Special thanks to one of my favorite people who wants to kick my ass right now: ShadowDragon357. They've seen me get sucked into Tumblr and my newest fandom 'Voltorn: Legendary Defenders' *screaming* and yet they still let me know I needed to get my ass in gear._

 **Thank you to all my recent reviewers and my old ones! This would be the time that I would answer all reviews, but there are so many that i'm just going to say thank you to everybody and do that for this chapter in the next one!**

 _ **Updating Information!**_

 _I wanted to wait until I had gotten 3 chapters writtten and typed up before I posted this one. That means i have two other chapters officially typed out after this one. I'm working on the outline right now for chapter 36. That being said there will **FOR SURE be updates this Sunday October 30th, and the following Sunday, November 6th.** I don't know after that. I got a job promotion and it keeps me hella busy and math is a bitch! (also i was a lazy ass over summer and procrasitinated till too late)_

 **Also, i joined a new fandom, Voltron! KLANCE bitches! (Okay i love like all pairings though! so bad!) So if anybody wants to chat about Voltron i'm totally up for it here or on TUmblr!**

 **Tumblr: legendzjagz**

 **Sorry, about Valerie's POV. it was extremely hard for me to write, especially the fighting stuff. I hope i did her justice! But let me tell you, Valerie was super duper hard for me to write. I do way better with Sam's POV.**

See you lovelies next Sunday!


	34. Pitiful Life

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or the song Gasoline by Halsey

* * *

 **I think there's a flaw in my code**

 **Oh-oh, oh-oh, these voices won't leave me alone**

 **Well, my heart is gold and my hands are cold**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: Pitiful Life**

 **Word count: 3,181**

 **10/30/16**

* * *

 **October 17th, 2014**

 **Friday**

 **Vlad's Mansion**

 **3:20 p.m.**

"Are you done yet?" Ellie asked impatiently from the back seat of Sam's car next to Danny.

"Hold your horses, will ya? Hacking Vlad's servers are a lot harder than you think." Tucker grumbled as he continued to type furiously into his computer.

"Oh please, the Fruit Loop probably hasn't changed his security since the 90s." Ellie scoffed and leaned back into the seat and crossed her arms over her chest and stared out the window at the mansion looming over them.

"It's sad how much that's true. _But_ he does change it all around sometimes and it's always ten times harder. Then when I get in we're good until he changes it again."

"Which probably won't be for another six months." Sam smirked to herself from the driver's seat.

"Okay, while Tucker is breaking in let's go over the plan." Danny deviated from their focus on Tucker so he could work in peace.

"Go in, get any files he has on me and anything now he's working on and try to get any hard copies. _And_ if there's time, tear up a few rooms." Ellie smiled devilishly and rubbed her hands together.

"Ellie." Danny scolded at the same time Sam said,

"Of course there'll be time."

"Sam!"

"What? She can destroy a few rooms. Good way to channel that anger towards Vlad."

"No it's not."

"Plus," She carried on like she hadn't heard him, "It's not like he won't know we broke in. And since Tucker is disabling all videos he won't even be able to call the cops on us."

"But still, destroying Vlad's property when _not_ fighting him isn't really good…"

"Oh my gods!" Tucker groaned, " _Mom and Dad_ stop fighting."

"What!" They both exclaimed while Ellie laughed loudly, clutching her stomach.

"Oh, come on don't give me that. Also, _we're in_." He grinned brightly at the two glaring at him.

"We are?" Ellie sat up excitedly in her seat. Tucker nodded and set his computer on the floor of the car. "Awesome! Let's go Danny!" She pulled on his arm as she transformed.

"I'm only going if you promise to limit your destruction to two rooms."

"Fine." She conceded right away, but unhappily, " _Now_ _let's go_." She tugged his arm again.

"Alright, alright." He chuckled, "Hold your horses." He transformed and tapped the Fenton Phone in his right ear to turn it on.

"What is with all this 'hold your horses' talk? Do you just like horses that much?"

"No, it's just a saying." Danny shrugged.

"Why, what do you say when you're telling someone to 'hold on'?" Sam questioned and turned around in her seat to look at the younger girl.

"Oh, well I typically say, Katse sta avga sou, which is Greek and literally means 'sit on your eggs'. I don't know. I liked it the most out of those kinds of phrases." Ellie shrugged.

"I like that. Katse sta avga sou." Sam tried it out while Danny and Tucker snickered into their palms but the girls ignored them. "You mind if I use it?"

"Sure." Ellie shrugged. "Not like I made it up or anything."

"Okay, you ready?" Danny asked and Ellie turned arching an eyebrow at him in her 'are you serious' look. It reminded him of someone, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. "Okay, okay. Wait till we give you guys the all clear." He told Sam and Tucker who nodded in understanding.

With that, Ellie and Danny flew up and out of the car and made a round through the house and around it but they didn't find any ghosts lurking about and gave Sam and Tucker the all clear to head inside.

"I'll meet you guys down there. I'm gonna go scope out my _two_ rooms." She rolled her eyes, but kissed Danny on the cheek before heading and Tucker met him in front of Vlad's tapestry a few minutes later.

"Ellie went…"

"We heard." They both said and pointed at their Fenton Phones.

"Alrighty, then." Danny breathed out, "Remember, get in and get out. The longer we stay, the more likely something bad will happen. Tucker, you have the download ready?"

"Yep, I just need to plug it in to the computer."

"Good, let's do this." Danny opened the bust and pushed red button for the tapestry to open and they took the stairs down into the lab.

It was much cleaner than the Fenton's lab, but because it was so organized it was easy for them to find his filing area. Tucker immediately went to work on the files on the large computer while Danny and Sam searched the tangible files in the cabinets.

Tucker had created a system to download anything with specific words, one that worked only for his own systems. He gathered everything containing the words: Danielle, Dani, Daniel, Danny, Sam, Samantha, Tucker, Fenton, Masters, GIW, Guys in White, Skulker, Working servants, Workers, DNA, clone, ectoranium, Ghost King, plans, and weapons. It was a huge list but he knew they had time and he had a huge amount of storage on his self-made thumb drive to ensure that everything he downloaded would fit, as well he transmitted everything he was downloading to his laptop out in the car.

He had gotten about halfway done downloading the information when Ellie finally joined the group once again in the lab and began helping Danny and Sam by making notes on the files that they couldn't take with them.

When Tucker had everything downloaded that he had searched for he decided to try and take a peek at some of the highly encrypted files that he had to hack manually.

He successfully opened one file listed under the name VM7131Z. From what he gathered from the first half of the plan listed was pretty generic and very Vlad. He spoke of his plan to take Maddie by Kidnapping Jack and using him as leverage to get Maddie to do his bidding. He would find some way to keep her under his control before killing Jack off. He still wanted Danny as his son, but if he couldn't use his parents as leverage Vlad was planning to still go the route of making a clone son. He went on about how he hoped that if Danny did come around, that him and the clone could become brothers to have two sons.

Tucker just got through that information and was about to keep scrolling when a loud siren alarm blared through the lab. Everyone cried out and grabbed their ears trying to black out the noise. Tucker looked up at the screen, hoping to find a way to get rid of the annoying sound, when he realized that the document he had been reading seemed to be melting off the screen his mouth popped open in horror. The document was replaced by the word FOOL written across the blank screen in red letters.

"It was a trap!" Tucker screamed, and turned to look at Danny, Sam and Ellie.

But they didn't hear him; they were all scurrying to pick up the folders and papers from the ground. Tucker turned back to the computer, grabbed the transmitter – that he made – and the USB drive, and shoved them into one of his pockets on his cargo pants and zipped up the pocket. As he turned back to them two things happened simultaneously.

One: The siren stopped.

Two: A dark figure appeared in between them wearing black holy jeans, a dark red shirt and a black leather jacket and black boots and his eyes glowed a fiery red.

"Who are you?" Danny demanded and got up from the floor, his own eyes sharp and green as he glared down the figure. But he did not speak. "Who _are_ you?" Danny growled and lit his hand with an ecto-ball.

The figure only smiled, which sent a shiver down their backs before he lifted his hand and quickly snapped his fingers.

The world went dark for Team Phantom.

* * *

 **October 17th, 2014**

 **Friday**

 **Vlad's Mansion**

 **4:12 p.m.**

The team slowly came out of unconsciousness. But when they remembered where they were, their eyes flew open and sat up with a gasp. They were all on the floor of Vlad's lab, papers were still strewn across the floor and the lights were still on, but the Dark ghost that had loomed over them was gone.

"Is everyone okay?" Danny asked, slowly getting up, rubbing his neck and quickly changed into his ghost form; Ellie followed suit.

"My neck kinda hurts." Ellie said quietly, rubbing her neck.

"Mine too." The trio answered and Sam and Tucker were rubbing the back of their necks as well.

"It must have been from hitting the ground. Some head injury or something." Sam suggested. She stopped rubbing her neck and moved to gather the files once again.

Tucker looked down at his watch to check the time and was surprised. "Well, good to know we've only been unconscious for a few minutes." He said and took his time to stand up.

"A few minutes, a few hours." Vlad's voice boomed over the lab. Tucker rushed over to Sam's side as Danny and Ellie moved to stand back to back. "What's it matter when I have you all here. When I have my two _special_ people here." He sneered.

"You're not keeping us here Vlad!" Danny yelled.

"I'm not yours!" Ellie yelled simultaneously.

"Oh, contraire my dear. You've always been mine. You wouldn't have come if you weren't."

"Come out and face us." Danny growled, lighting up his hands. Ellie followed nervously, letting her blue flames pour over her gloves.

"You shouldn't have come if you didn't want to be captured. You just can't seem to gather where you stand in this game, Daniel. You're still a _pawn_. A _pawn_ that is pretending to be a _Queen_." His laugh echoed through the lab. "When I'm done with you, you will be _nothing_ but a means to an end."

The doors to the portal suddenly slid open, revealing an empty hull, so similar to the way the portal looked when Danny had first stepped in it so many years ago.

Danny furrowed his brows and stepped slowly towards the portal. "What are you playing at Vlad?"

"Come Daniel, you have your mother's brain, use it."

"Danny…" Ellie called out nervously. She didn't like the vision of him standing in front of an empty portal.

"Be careful, Danny, you know his traps are never simple." Tucker said worriedly.

But his mind felt muddled. As if he were hearing their voices through cotton. "Why isn't it working?" He asked aloud, a hand came up and rested on the outside of the cold metal.

"Danny…" Ellie called out again. She wanted to figure where Vlad's voice was coming from. It felt as if it had come from everywhere and was surrounding her. She felt as if she couldn't have her back turned and if she did, he'd be there when she turned around. But all she was met with were the lab walls.

"Danny, what are you…?" Sam looked up from where she had finally gotten all the papers in order, just in time to see Danny take a step into the portal. "Danny! Get out of there!" She scrambled to her feet, her heart was beating practically through her chest; her mind flashed to three years ago at the similar memory.

"It's okay, Sam." His voice was smooth and took a few more steps into the portal. "I just want,"

"Get out of there!"

"to find out why,"

"Danny!"

"it's not working."

" _Danny_! Seriously, what is…"

" _DANNY_!"

Danny's pain filled screamed filled the entire lab. It rose and rose to a decimal so earsplitting that they had to cover their ears. Blue electricity sparked to life in the metal hull, scorching everything in its path. Danny included. His body convulsed as the electricity coursed through him; his head was thrown back and mouth open wide in his bone chilling scream while his hands were clenched tightly in fists, red blood dripped through his tightened fingers to the ground.

Sam and Tucker, after having covered their ears ran towards the downed portal, but they only took a few steps when chains rattled from above them and a barred cage rushed down to meet the ground, trapping Sam and Tucker from reaching Danny. Vlad's laughter returned, distinguishable enough just over the sound of Danny's tortured screams.

The portal stopped shocking not a moment after the cage crashed down. Danny's eyes rolled back into his head and transformed back into his human form as he fell out of the portal, smacking the side of his head against the concrete. Smoke rose from his body and dark burns splotched on the skin they could see and his clothes hung off him in tatters.

Ellie stood frozen in her small circle. Unable to find the source of Vlad's cackle filling the room. Round and round but all she saw were dark walls of the lab. "My little girl. You've made it home." His voice mocked.

"I'm not…" She tried to say, but the words got stuck in her throat.

Vlad's voice chuckled. " _My little girl_. Ha! You're naïve. You know _nothing_."

Ellie turned around again, feeling as if he was speaking behind her once more, but emptiness met her once again. She could just hear Tucker and Sam yelling at her to not listen but it felt as if she were underwater and the only clear voice was Vlad's.

"My little girl…"

Ellie couldn't breathe.

"What a title. Not one that you deserve. You're not even real, what should it matter what you're called?"

She couldn't find him, it was like he was in her head, but she knew that couldn't be. She dropped to her knees, hands clutched over her ears, the fire dissipating and squeezed her eyes shut. She had to block him out. She didn't want to hear this. She couldn't.

"Pathetic. Naïve. Not real. A poor imitation." His voice filled her up and she let out a sob. Her forehead came to rest on the cold concrete do nothing to cool her clammy skin.

"No… please… _stop_."

"You only exist to _serve me_. So I can understand why you worked better than the others. You're still alive because I _let_ you live."

She gasped and looked up from the ground at the proximity of his voice and found him looming over her, teeth bared and red eyes haunting. She screamed instantly and scrambled to get away from him crawling backwards on her hands and feet, but he continued to stalk towards her.

"Insolent, a pawn, nothing, who would want someone that isn't even _real_? _You're not a part of them_. They _pity_ you. _Pity_ what you are. A clone, a nobody, a nothing. You can't change what you are, you _naïve little girl_."

"No, please…" She chocked and her back hit the filing cabinets on the far wall causing them to shake. "Please, don't say…"

"What? That no one could _love you_? Once a _clone_ , always a _clone_. You don't even know what real love is. No one will actually accept you. You're a freak. An _experiment_. You are _mine_. _You will listen to me_." He growled and backhanded her across the face, sending her tumbling to the floor.

"Pathetic." He sneered and she sat up, blowing her white hair out of her face, but she didn't have time to try to get away when Vlad reached down and picked her up by her neck.

She kicked and thrashed and tried to pull his arm away and scratched him and scorched him with her fire but to not avail he was too strong. "Sam!" She chocked, knowing Danny was out from the portal. "Sam! Help!" Her back hit the same cold and metal table she had known for a long portion of her life and she kicked harder, but each kick hurt her neck more and more. "Sam! Tucker!" She barely got out.

"Ellie this isn't real!"

Ellie sobbed as restraints came over her to lock her into the vertical lab table. Sucking in a deep breath when Vlad let go once the restraints were there to hold her in place.

"Ellie listen to me!"

"Let's see what we can find shall we darling?" Vlad asked and Ellie's eyes zeroed in on the large dissection knife in his hand.

"No! Help! _Sam_!" She screeched then squirmed and lit her blue fire once more to try and burn the restraints but it wasn't working.

"Ellie!" Sam screamed back but she still couldn't get Ellie to hear her. To understand what she was saying. This wasn't real. She couldn't feel Danny in her mind. Not even a slight touch. And she knew Vlad had to still be in Indianapolis at the time. But now she had to figure out how to get out of the cage.

Oh, duh! _Not real_.

She pushed herself through on of the openings of the bars, easily stepping through causing the entire cage to shimmer into disappearance. "You get Danny and I'll get Ellie."

"Got it." Tucker said in understanding.

Tucker quickly rushed to Danny's side who was groaning on the ground and in the process of trying to get up. "Whoa there, easy." Tucker said and reached under his arms to help him sit up straight.

Danny blearily turned to look at him, "What happened?"

It was like a slap to the face. Tucker sucked in a sharp breath at how similar this was to when Danny had _first_ gone into the portal. And oddly enough the second time. And then he really did know that this wasn't real and it was too similar to nightmares he's had in the past about that day. And then his mind finally caught up to where Sam's had been and leaned down to tell Danny.

Sam herself had quickly made her way to Ellie's side and watched as Vlad spat insult after insult at Ellie while holding the dissection knife. Sam reached over and grabbed Ellie's chin to get her to look Sam in the eye, but her green orbs only stayed focused on Vlad's, tears ran down from them and past her trembling lip. But Sam chose to ignore it for the moment.

"This. Isn't. _Real_." Sam said slowly, enunciating each word.

"What?" Ellie asked, her voice cracking and eyes finally turned to focus on Sam's and not the pressing figure of Vlad.

"You won't understand, you _stupid_ …"

" _Shut up_." Sam snarled at the figure and the nightmare Vlad froze up. She turned back to Ellie, still holding her chin to make sure she continued to look at her. "Ellie, _this isn't real. Vlad isn't real_. This is a nightmare."

"What!" her eyes went wide, finally understanding Sam's words. "Oh my god!" She exclaimed and everything was thrown into darkness once more.

 **October 17th, 2014**

 **Friday**

 **Vlad's Mansion**

 **6:01 p.m.**

* * *

Hey! So about Vlad's mansion in Amity Park, I couldn't remember what or how he got to the lab. And I really didn't have time to actually sit down and watch the few episodes to figure it out. So if anybody remembers, or if you can just tell me! I'll go in and change it and keep note of it for later chapters. Thank You!

Thank you to everyone for your reviews! I don't have time to respond to everybody like I like to, but just know I'm so happy to see that so many of you have stuck through it even after so long! I love you all so much!

Now remember the next chapter is done, but I still haven't even had time to outline the entire chapter 36 which means it's gonna be very likely that you won't get chapter 36 till Thanksgiving. But Chapter 35 will definitely be out next Sunday/Monday!


	35. DNA Truths

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or the song, Shake it Out by Florence + The Machine**

 **Notes at bottom!**

* * *

 **And I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't**

 **So here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my rope**

 **And I'm ready to suffer and I'm ready to hope**

* * *

 **I Walk the Line: DNA Truths**

 **Word count: 4,739**

 **11/8/16**

* * *

 **October 17th, 2014**

 **Friday**

 **Vlad's Mansion**

 **6:01 p.m.**

The group groaned as they came to, and slowly sat up, feeling the aches all over their bodies. They were all laid out on the hard floor of the lab, where they had landed when their vision when dark.

"Is everyone okay?" Tucker asked, and rubbed the side of his neck. "Whoa, Déjà vu."

"Is this real? Or are we in another nightmare?" Danny questioned aloud, and rubbed a sore spot on the back of his neck.

"We can check that," Sam said, "Check your fingers and toes. People always have extra fingers and toes in dreams and then check to see if you can read. You can't read in dreams and nightmares."

Everyone quickly checked their fingers and pulled off their shoes to check their toes but they were happy to find out that there were only 5 on each appendage.

Tucker quickly pulled out his phone, Carol, and pulled up his text messages and was happy to find that he could read them easily; he called Ellie over to test out her reading while Danny and Sam did the same with their own phones. All were relieved to find no difficulties in reading the text.

"Good, do we have all the information?" Danny asked Tucker.

"Yeah, in my pockets." He patted the zippered pocket and was pleased to feel both electronic pieces hidden away.

"Great." Danny bent down to help Sam pick up their hardcopies. "We can discuss what happened when we're somewhere safe. Let's go before some other horrible thing happens."

"I second that." Ellie agreed, voice still a bit shaky. She changed quickly into her other form and grabbed Tucker around the waist and flew out of the mansion as quickly as possible with Sam and Danny following soon after.

They quickly got back into Sam's car and once they had left the mansion in the rearview mirror, they let out a long relieved breath, though their bodies were still tensed. While in the back, Danny placed the hard documents and notes they gathered into his backpack so as to avoid suspicion when they reached his house.

Sam pulled up alongside Maddie's car in the driveway, pulling up behind the Fenton Assault Vehicle where Maddie and Jack had the hood popped open and were currently doing maintenance.

"Hey guys!" Maddie called, waving at them, as they stepped out of the vehicle, a bright smile on her face.

"Hi, Mrs. Fenton." Sam and Tucker answered at the same time as Danny said,

"Hey, mom." They each waved before shutting their car doors.

"Oh!" Her eyes went wide as she noticed Ellie, "Who's your new fried?" She reached for a towel and began wiping off her hands.

"A new friend!" Jack said excitedly and stood up too quickly from his hunched position over the engine and knocked the pole holding the hood up, off from its position. "Whoa, steady." He reached up to stop the hood from falling before placing the rod back in position and then turned to face them again. "Sorry about that, it's great to meet you." Jack beamed.

"What's your name?" Maddie question when Ellie didn't give her information freely.

"Oh, this is Ellie, my second cousin." Sam answered for her and placed a hand protectively on her shoulder.

"Well, it is very nice to meet you, Ellie. If you need anything I'm Maddie and this is Danny's father, Jack."

"It's nice to meet you, too." Ellie responded in kind, keeping a friendly, but fake smile on her face.

"You kids gonna start on homework?"

"Yeah, we'll just be in my room most of the night."

"Danny," Maddie called as they turned to leave, "You guys will be on your own for dinner tonight. Your father and I are having dinner with _Vlad_." Her nose turned up.

"Yeah, Vladdy said he had something _important_ to talk with us about. Don't know what it could be about though." He shrugged.

"Vlad wants to talk with you?" Danny's brow furrowed and he clutched the straps of his backpack tighter.

"Yeah!" Jack said excitedly, "We haven't seen him in so long. It'll be great to catch up." He beamed, while Maddie's face turned sourer.

"Yeeesss," She held out, "It'll be _quite interesting_." She turned to look at Danny and winked at him. He knew she was referring to the time a few years ago when Vlad had played them. It was still a weird connection he had with her, but truthfully he didn't feel like playing the loving son with a connection to her at the moment, he had bigger things to worry about. Like Ellie. He wanted to get her away from them as quickly as possible.

He was on edge already from what happened not even twenty minutes ago and now standing in front of his biological parents, it wasn't helping and was happy that Sam had the same feeling and stood protectively in front of Ellie because otherwise he would have been over on that side of the car in an instant. He couldn't believe he had thought it would be a good idea for her to become a Fenton and live with him. Ellie would have pissed at him because he probably wouldn't stop being overprotective. He was happy that she would be living under Ida's official care; he didn't have to worry so much about her being killed with the Manson's like he did with Maddie and Jack.

"Okay then. I guess I'll see you guys in the morning. Have fun!" He called a bit sarcastically, but really he just wanted to know what Vlad was going to talk with them about and if he needed to worry about Vlad performing a plan to steal Maddie and kill Jack tonight, or if he was just setting up for a future date. He figured he'd probably find out in the morning or when they got back. He cared enough to be worried, but he felt as though he was already over stimulated from Vlad's he didn't think he could handle another encounter. He'd do anything to protect Maddie and Jack from Vlad, but it was becoming harder and harder to keep that idea a forefront in his mind.

Maddie's expression dropped unhappily at his response, but Jack on the other hand still beamed at them, "Alright Danny-boy. Have fun studying kids."

The rest quickly their goodbye's before they rushed into the house. Danny ran upstairs to grab his computer and then met everyone down in the lab. Though the portal was open, Danny grabbed a Fenton porta-a-portal on the off chance that his parents closed the doors to the portal. They forewent using the scooters and decided that it would be easy enough for Ellie and Danny to just carry Sam and Tucker.

They effortlessly made it to the door with no problems and Danny let Ellie have the pleasure to open the blue and green door for the first time. She was practically bursting with excitement as she turned the golden knob and it opened easily into the living room.

"Whoa! This is so cool! It looks like an actual living room!"

They all chuckled, "Just wait till you see the rest of it." Tucker told her.

"I'll take her on a tour." Sam volunteered, "Why don't you guys pull some dinner together from the grocery's you got yesterday."

"On it." Tucker said happily and both boys dropped their bags off in the living room before making way to the kitchen.

"This is so tight." Ellie beamed excitedly, pushing away from what happened earlier and focused on what was going on in that moment.

Sam side smiled and led her upstairs, taking her into each of their rooms to showcase them. Ellie was excited at how they looked and quickly asked how this all worked.

Sam shrugged, "We don't really know. Power of the Ghost Zone I guess. We don't really know how much of the Zone works actually. Danny thinks it's got something to do with ectoplasm manipulation and maybe having a ghost in charge of all the doors. But we haven't given it enough thought yet. We've been a little preoccupied."

"I wouldn't be surprised if there was a ghost controlling these doors. It would make a lot of sense."

Sam shrugged again, "It'll go on our 'ask Clockwork' list."

Ellie chuckled, "You guys actually have one of those?"

Sam rolled her eyes, "You have no idea."

"I don't know whether that's hilarious or sad. Anyway! Do I have a room in this house thing?"

"I think so." Sam shut the door to her room and turned towards the door opposite her own. "We have this room. When we last checked it was very basic. But maybe it changes for the person staying in it? We can try opening it and see if it changes." Sam gestured to the white door that stood out amongst the sand beach color walls.

Ellie reached out and turned the knob and the door swung open to reveal, not a guest room, but a room that Ellie instantly fell in love with. Sam caught out of the corner of her eye another white door that popped up along their hallway.

"I guess that answers that." She said and followed a gaping Ellie into her room.

Her walls were accented in a warm burgundy, a queen sized bed laid against the wall to their left covered in a white and blue sheet set. A desk and book case stood on the wall opposite her bedroom door and on the wall to the right a boom box system with a doc station for an IPod and a CD player was situated on shelves.

"It's so cool." She turned in a full circle on the hardwood floors to take it all in. "What's the white boards for do you think?" Ellie asked looking at the boards that stretched from one wall to the next creating a straight line around the room above her bed, desk and music system."

"I don't know." Sam walked over to one and felt the white boards and was surprised to feel a familiar substance. "Oh! They're corkboards."

"Corkboards?" Ellie walked over and pressed her fingers to it, "Wow, I don't know what I could put here, though. And there's _a lot_ of space."

"Anything really. Pictures, jewelry, stuff you're interested in, notes, a calendar, posters. Anything you can pin up. There's not really a right or wrong way to go about it."

"Hmm," She pursed her lips, "I do have _a lot_ of pictures."

Sam nodded in agreement. "What are we up to now? The twentieth photo album?"

"I think so. And I still have a bunch more pictures to put in them. And stuff from my recent traveling!"

"We'll have to pack them all up and get some push pins or we can use super glue to permanently keep them there and won't poke holes in them."

"This is gonna be so cool." She breathed out a smile that stayed steady on her face.

"I'm glad you're excited." Sam smiled down at her. "You ready to check out the rest of the house?"

"Yeah! Let's go!" She turned around abruptly and practically flew out of the door in excitement. They passed the boys in the kitchen and Ellie had to stop to watch the miracle of Danny and Tucker cooking.

"I didn't know you could cook."

"I love food too much to _not_ know." Tucker chuckled as he cut up chicken while Danny was currently cutting up red peppers.

"That makes sense. What are you guys making?"

"Fajitas." Tucker and Danny answered.

"Yum! I haven't had a fajita since I was in Mexico."

Danny and Tucker chuckled, "I bet they tasted better down there than they do in the US." Danny said.

"Actually, it was Texas that created the fajita." Ellie answered. "So they tried to imitate it down there. It was okay. I'm sure yours actually taste better."

"Oh they will!" Tucker smirked, "I make the best fajita's."

"Except for that one time." Sam pointed out from beside her. Danny laughed and Tucker smacked him in the shoulder.

"I told you never to bring it up." He pouted and his voice turned sour.

"What happened?" Ellie asked excitedly.

"We don't talk about the bean episode." Sam laughed. "But you're family, so…"

"NO!" Tucker cried.

"He tried mixing beans with ketchup and with barbecue sauce. Then served it on the fajitas. They were disgusting!" Danny shook his head, but continued cutting up the vegetable that Tucker wouldn't touch.

"Danny!" Tucker exclaimed and side kicked his leg.

"Ow!" He pointed his knife at Tucker, "Okay, for that I'll make you cut up these vegetables."

"No, no! I'll be good." He smiled and quickly went back to cutting the last of the chicken.

Danny smirked, "You going to show her the basement?" He asked Sam.

"Yeah. We'll be a bit, I'm sure."

"You love it." Tucker said, "It's so cool."

"Awesome." Ellie gave them a quick smile and she and Sam moved towards the basement door to lead her down.

' _Take your time.'_ Danny said through their link, _'When you guys get back up I want to talk about the nightmare at Vlad's. I wanted to wait a little bit to give El time to calm down.'_

' _No worries, I'll have her do a few of the training exercises. I think that'll calm down her frustrations with Vlad at least a little bit.'_

' _Sounds good. Do you still want your red onion in your fajita's this time?'_

' _Yeah, sure. Why not.'_ Sam answered as she and Ellie reached the bottom of the stairs.

"This is it?" Ellie turned her nose up at the lab presented before her and folded her arms across her chest. "This isn't that cool."

"Well, you're right about _this_ part of the basement."

"There's more?" She asked hopefully.

"Oh, yeah." Sam smirked and walked over to the end of the wall, where the entrance to the work out room was and flipped the switch for the lights.

Ellie quickly fell in love with the workout room. Her favorite part that she found in her little amount of time spent in the gym was the obstacle course. She was bedazzled at how all of the things worked, but it just drove home the idea in her mind that there was some ghost out there controlling the doors. Probably as old as Clockwork. But she didn't care how it worked, she just loved using it. All the twists and turns it provided and obstacles. It presented a level of difficulty she wanted that you couldn't get from conventional obstacle courses. The way the golden glittering lights made the solid walls and obstacles amazed her and she wondered how they truly worked.

After going through two of the courses that she learned that Sam had designed she felt herself relax greatly from the nightmare of earlier. She felt more at ease.

"You ready to go back up? Danny says that the food's almost done."

"Eh," She shrugged, but walked out of the glittering yellow course. "I guess."

Sam chuckled and turned off the course and the golden walls disappeared into darkness. "You can come back down later. This is as much for you as it is for us."

"I wonder if it would be better if I just stay here." She spoke her thoughts aloud, "Then we wouldn't have to worry about all the stuff we talked about."

Sam turned off the light and followed her up the stairs. "You would want to stay here all the time?"

"I mean I could stay here during the night and then during the day I could hang out with you guys or your grandma."

"Okay," Sam nodded as they reached the top of the stairs. "But what about the future? What about when you're older? Don't you want to go to school? Live a life outside of the Zone? Somewhere to live out of the Zone?"

"I mean yeah, I want to go to school." Ellie opened the door and was instantly assaulted by the wondrous aroma of fajita's. "And…"

Sam interrupted, "Which means you can't just stay here in the Zone. There needs to be someone in charge of you, someone they can call. People are nosier now then say back in the 50s. It's not some movie and we can get away with stuff. Now a day it's a lot harder to beat the system."

"What are we arguing about?" Danny asked causing them to turn away from the other and towards him and Tucker as they set the plates out at each seat at the table.

"Well, I threw out the idea of just staying here?" Ellie's idea came out as a question and Sam shut the basement door.

Danny smiled and continued to set up, Sam moved to help Tucker bring the food over. "Man, I wish I could just stay here. That would be great."

"But, I told her if she wants to make a life, it couldn't start here."

"You did?" Ellie asked confused.

"Well, not _exactly_ , but that was my meaning." Sam explained.

"But she's right." Danny agreed and moved about to grab the forks, spoons and knives they had gotten from Ida's old china and flatware collection. "El, if you wanted to stay here that would be fine, but you would go stir crazy. You like being able to be free and go about your business. You'd be cooped up here. Doing what we're doing is going to help you keep that freedom."

"But there's not really freedom with Vlad and the GIW out there." The air quickly shifted into a much darker atmosphere as Ellie folded her arms across her chest, voice tight and eyes sharp. "What kind of freedom do we have if we have to keep watching our backs like caged animals?!" She huffed tightly, eyes locked with Danny's, fierce but held a shine of fear.

All action halted in the kitchen.

"The point is to not let them win." Tucker stated, voice tight but confident.

"Well, that's part of it." Danny amended not looking away from similar eyes.

"Then what's the _other_ part?" She demanded. "What's the point to all of this? Why try to beat them down at all when we never get anywhere?"

"Are you really asking a _universe_ question right now?"

"So what if I am." Ellie demanded at Tucker, glaring over at him.

"It's important because it proves that whatever you think of yourself or whatever Vlad thinks of you is _wrong_. All sentient beings can think for themselves, have self-awareness, which is pretty much humans, and everyone at some point wonders about their purpose here. Why are we doing any of this? Why us? It proves that you're more than a clone, Ellie. It proves that you're your own person. It proves that what happened earlier was a figment of your imagination and your fears had been played on. It proves that you're human too." Sam finished by placing a hand on the younger girls' shoulder.

Ellie looked between them all to see their serious and unyielding faces, "What exactly happened earlier?" She asked, she wanted to talk about what Sam had said but she wanted to understand how one second they were confronted with a new ghost and the next second shit had hit the fan. If she could understand how it happened then maybe she could figure out why it happened.

"It was some ghost that was working with Vlad. And I think he kind of had the opposite effect of Nocturne. Instead of trapping us in our dreams we were trapped in our nightmares." Danny said and began setting the table again.

"But we were all there; it was like a group nightmare."

"That's one of the reasons why I think it was so easy to break out of it."

"Easy!" Tucker and Ellie exclaimed.

"Yes, easy." Sam rolled her eyes. "We were able to use normal dream actions and realizations to get out of the nightmare. And typically when we encounter a ghost with special powers we have to think outside the box to get out of their control and we didn't this time." She took a seat at the table and the others followed her.

"It didn't feel easy." Ellie muttered.

"Probably because it's harder to get away from a nightmare than a dream."

"Yeah! Like a frown!" Tucker realized as he grabbed a tortilla and began making his fajita like everyone else.

"What?" The other three chorused.

"What?" Tucker looked up.

"What do you mean a frown?" Danny questioned.

"Oh! Well like a frown is bad like a nightmare and a smile is good like a dream. And it takes more muscles to frown than to smile. So what would be considered easy in a dream is hard in a nightmare."

There was a long pause before Sam said, "We've been friends for too long cause that _actually_ made sense."

Tucker laughed, "Eh, you love me."

"Shut up and eat your fajita." She rolled her eyes but the twinkle in them let him know she wasn't really annoyed. "But the thing is whoever he was he was able to find our worst nightmare and use it against us. The one thing that I think saved us was the fact that I couldn't feel Danny through our link."

"Thank gods." Danny whispered, but everyone still heard it.

' _We're not talking about that right now.'_

' _I know but,…"_ Danny tried to protest.

' _No. Later. We need to see if Ellie will try and discuss her nightmare or if we need to get Jazz to help her.'_

' _You're right.'_

' _Always am.'_ She winked.

' _Let's not go that far.'_ He rolled his eyes in kind.

"You two done?" Tucker asked when Danny and Sam's eyes unclouded.

"Uh, yeah." They blushed lightly while Tucker and Ellie smirked.

"Do you guys hear each other in dreams normally?"

They both shook their heads, though Danny answered aloud, "No, which is how Sam could tell that it wasn't real. We can hear and feel each other at any other time."

"So that's why you were relieved she wasn't in your head when the portal thing happened." She asked earnestly and bit into the folded fajita she had made.

"Yes." Danny nodded. "I'm happy about that, because we can feel each other's pain. And emotions. And though I still have nightmares about the accident I never want any of you to experience what happened. Even a small sliver of it."

The table was silent as Ellie absorbed the information she just received, slowly putting down her food. "You still have nightmares about the portal?" She whispered.

Danny nodded and locked eyes with her. "I do. They're a lot better now, because I've talked about it and come to terms with what happened to me. But it's still one of my worst nightmares I have."

"But if you remember this nightmare, then why didn't you stop yourself from going into the portal? Why didn't you stop the nightmare?" she asked desperately.

Danny shrugged, "Did it feel like a nightmare to you? Did you stop yours before it began?"

"No." She answered both questions and cast her eyes down to her plate.

"Have you had that nightmare before?" Danny asked his voice soft.

Ellie nodded and clenched her jaw tight. "Yes." The trio waited quietly for her to continue knowing all they needed to do was wait. "But it's never felt that real before. I've always been able to tell when it was a nightmare. Being in the lab made it feel real. I thought he was actually there."

When she didn't continue for a few minutes, Sam tried helping her along, "Is what happened today, what he said, something he used to tell you?"

She shook her head, her food still untouched, "Not until after I disobeyed him." She gritted her teeth, " _I hate him_." The words hissed through her teeth.

"As do we all." Tucker agreed.

"I want him dead."

Danny only shook his head, "That would be too easy. He doesn't deserve death."

Though his eyes hadn't changed, the dark tone in Danny's voice made an involuntary shiver run down Sam, Tucker and Ellie's backs. Ellie had never heard Danny's tone shift that way and it truly made her feel unstable, until the harsh look on his face softened to something she recognized. Tucker reached over and placed a reaffirming hand on hers where it rested on her knee. She hoped they would tell her about that when Danny wasn't around.

"As much as Vlad deserves to suffer, this is about you, Ellie." Sam interjected, "If you would like we can start adding you into Jazz's sessions."

She nodded immediately. "Yeah. I think… I think that would be good."

Sam's mouth pulled at the sides, "We'll talk with her later tonight then. Because I know that a few of us will need to speak with her." She pointedly looked at Danny.

"What?" He shrugged, and then picked up his fajita where he had set it down and took a bite, "I'm fine. Nothing I haven't dealt with before."

"Danny." Tucker condescended.

"Seriously." He held up one hand towards him. "I'm fine. I'm more worried about you guys."

"We'll be doing an extra session with Jazz, too." Sam sided with Tucker easily.

"Then we're good."

"Danny." Both voices hard as if a parent was using a stern voice with a child.

" _Fine_." He rolled his eyes. "Fine. We'll call her up after we go through the most of the information we got today."

Sam and Tucker smiled triumphantly at the other and high-fived from across the table.

After that the tension at the table eased and everyone went back to eating and conversation consisted of the trio's school day. Once everyone, including Tucker's never ending stomach, was finished eating everyone cleared the table and washed the dishes before settling in the living room.

They laid out all of the hard copies on the floor while Tucker uploaded everything to Danny and Sam's laptop, since his laptop had had everything downloaded right away. Their main focus was Ellie so they planned to look at the other information after they figured out if Vlad had a birth certificate for her or not. They separated the hard files between each other that fell under the category of 'Clone' since there was not a specific folder dedicated to Danielle.

For the first hour they only found information pertaining to old clones, their diagnostics and what Vlad needed to do to improve them.

But then Danny came across a manila file folder inside the large pile of papers he was going through, labeled 'FENTON, DANIELLE'. He gasped in excitement and opened the yellowish folder to reveal a basic information page about Ellie.

A picture of her in both her human and ghost forms resided in the top left corner. Underneath listed general information before flowing into more detailed versions of the items listed under her photos.

 **Name:** Danielle Masters

 **Creation Date:** April 26th, 2012

 **Father:** Vladimir Masters

 **DNA Male donor:** Daniel James Fenton

 **DNA Female donor:** Samantha Elizabeth Manson

 **Eye Color:** blue/ green

 **Hair Color:** black/ white

 **Height:** 5"2

 **Weight:** 105 lbs

 **Skin:** Caucasian

 **Mid-morph DNA:** No

 **Stable:** 85%

" _Holy. Shit_." Danny breathed out, eyes trained on two lines of text.

"What?" The three of them looked up at Danny, ready to hear what he had found, but the words were caught in his throat.

He had no idea how to even start. "Um… it's uh, Ellie, I… I mean… _we_ …" he looked up at them away from the words that had imprinted on his eyes forever, but he couldn't finish.

"What's wrong Danny? All I'm getting is _shock_." Sam asked in concern.

He swallowed audibly, "I… I found who's other DNA Vlad used besides my own to create you."

"Vlad used someone else's DNA!" Ellie exclaimed shocked.

"Doesn't that defeat the purpose of a _Clone_?" Tucker rolled his eyes.

"Who is it?" Sam inquired.

Danny couldn't look at her, only at Ellie. "I'm your biological father, El. And your biological mother…" He turned to look at the love of his life, "Is _Sam_. We're your biological parents."

 **October 17th, 2014**

 **Friday**

 **Danny's Door**

 **9:00 p.m.**

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 **Hey guys! Sorry for the day later update! i had a math and business exam to study for, for today and i got distracted from updating, and the election lol**

 **Thank you guys for sticking around so long still! I love hearing your reviews and i can't wait to hear what you have to say about this chapter! I know a lot of you knew i was heading towards Danny and Sam being Danielle aka Ellie's biological parents, but it's still nice to hear about what you think!**

 **Also! this was the last regular update for a while! I'm still working on finishing the outline for chapter 36 which means its not ready, but i still want to hear what you have to say about this last chapter! I hope to get chapter 36 done over thanksgiving break, but i'm not making any promises.**

 **I love you all and i'll do my best to get back soon! But my time is limited and i hope you all still understand that!**


	36. Truth Will Set You free

**Uh, Hey guys! *Ducks head and hides* I'm so sorry I haven't updated since Novemeber! But a few of you know what's been going on. I had a horrible mental health thingy. I was diagnosed with severe depression and severe social anxiety. And then I later on during the months I was trying to get better got so low that I almost took my own life. It's been a shit show, let me tell you. (But that will be at the end of this chapter, if you want you can read what happened, but this is the super duper rushed version).**

 **Thank you all for your support of this story so far! I love having you guys as the fans of my story!**

 **Heads up for this chapter if you are uncomfortable with mentions of self-harm and/ or suicide I suggest only reading the first and third section and completely skipping the third section. If you don't want to try, you can PM me and I can send you a bullet point summary of the important things of this chapter.**

 **Also! Some Sexy time (Like it kinda just jumped at me lol) is on the way in this chapter – if you are uncomfortable with this, then skip after The trio have gone up to bed until the third section.**

 **Hope you guys enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or the song 'Don't Play' by Halsey**

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 **Yeah, don't even try**

 **Can't fuck up my vibe**

 **Double cuppin' in the rid**

 **Motherfucker, don't play with me**

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 **I Walk the Line: Truth Will Set You Free**

 **Word count:** **19,464**

 **7/10/17  
**

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 **October 17th, 2014**

 **Friday**

 **Danny's Door**

 **9:00 p.m.**

"Wait, what?" Ellie gasped, looking between Sam and Danny, who held eyes in shock.

Danny nodded and held out the paper, turning away from Sam to look at Ellie. "It's written here, well, _typed_ out here." Ellie reached for the papers with slightly shaking hands and slowly went over what the report read.

Sam and Danny's minds were practically blank. The only phrases that were swiftly moving through their minds were: ' _Ellie's my daughter. I have a daughter. A daughter. With Danny/ Sam. Holy shit.'_ It kept repeating over and over and over as they tried to come to terms with this new information.

"I can't believe it." Tucker whispered, looking down at his computer where he searched for Ellie's lab report and found the proof of the experiment of using Sam's DNA beside Danny's DNA. "I'm actually an _uncle_. For _real_."

"You've always been my _real_ uncle." Ellie stated absently, still looking over the paper.

"Yeah, but now it's _official_." He couldn't keep the smile off his face and reached over to wrap Ellie in a side hug.

"What does this mean, though? What does this mean for me?" Her voice could barely reach above the shocked whisper, but she looked up at Tucker with deep concern and fear. "Is this why I'm actually a girl? Does… does this… _change_ everything?"

"It means that you don't have to worry about Vlad in the way we have been. Well, sort of." Tucker squeezed her upper arm where his hand was wrapped around it.

She continued to sit there in stunned silence, looking up at him, but Tucker didn't have much else to say, and for once in his life he decided it would be best to keep quiet and let everything advance on their own. At least for Ellie's sake.

"I can't believe it." Danny looked away from his locked gaze with Sam, but kept their hands intertwined. "I mean," He looked steadily at the paper in Ellie's hands. "I always had that idle _thought_ that, technically I was your dad. _Way_ more than Vlad. But now it's not even the fact that you were cloned, now it's in front of me. And," He looked up from the paper to look, into Ellie's fearful blue eyes, "and now, I'm so, so relieved that I am."

"Really?" She sat up a little straighter in Tucker's arm, a hopeful air surrounded her once again.

Danny smiled softly, " _Of course_." A blush quickly rose to his cheeks, "For some time now, if I'm honest here," he rubbed the back of his neck. "I've thought of you in the way of a daughter."

Tucker pulled his arm away from around her, as Ellie literally flew at Danny and tackled him into a hug as they sat on the floor. Danny had to release Sam's hand to catch himself from falling over as he caught Ellie with the other, and firmly wrapped his arm around her back as she clung to him. Once steady, he wrapped his other arm around her, and she buried her face into the side of his neck.

"Me too." Ellie choked out, "I thought it was just me. And… and…" She breathed in trying to get under control, "I thought, for like a split second, that… that… that you…" She breathed shakily again, "you didn't see me that way, especially after I chose to follow under grandma Ida's idea, instead of being… being a Fenton."

Danny shook his head and rubbed her back. "Oh, El." His deep voice reverberated between them, "I love you. And your choice to not become a Fenton is okay with me. Better actually. I'd be too overprotective. _Way_ more than I am now. I think that your choice was the best one, and you'll get to figure out who you really are without the past of Vlad's wants, weighing you down."

Ellie let out a cynical laugh. "But aren't I technically a Fenton?" She kept her tight hold around him, but turned so that her words were no longer muffled in his skin.

"Well, yeah, but you're also technically a Manson." His eyes snapped up instantly to Sam's lilac ones. Her eyes were still wide as though a deer stuck in headlights.

' _Danny, I…_ ' She had no idea what to say. This was something totally new. She had no idea how to handle this.

Danny could feel Sam's feelings easily flowing through their link. Her uncertainty. Her fear. Her violation. Her insecurity to be motherly. Her love for Ellie. Her rage at Vlad. And most importantly, her panic.

' _It's okay, Sam. Breathe. Like you do with me. In._ ' He breathed in slowly through his nose and saw her do the same. He slowly counted to ten before telling her to breathe out through her mouth. Danny noticed Sam calming marginally well along with both Ellie – who continued to hug him so tightly he felt as though his bones would break and Tucker, who Danny figured needed to calm down from his excitement.

"Do we all feel calmer now?" Danny questioned quietly after the tenth repetition. Ellie nodded into his neck while Sam and Tucker agreed aloud.

"I'm really sorry, Sam." Ellie turned her head on Danny's shoulder to look at the person who was essentially her mother.

Her eyes narrowed in confusion, "Why are _you_ sorry?"

"That your DNA is inside of me." She sniffled.

Sam shook her head and moved closer to her, "This isn't _your_ fault, Ellie. This is all Vlad's fault. No matter what any of that says, do not be sorry for who you are. DNA doesn't define you. I mean," She took a shaky breath to steel her rising panic, "look at the three of us. Tucker may have certain characteristics that he shares with his parents, but there's so much more. His love of technology is the big one, but also his light-hearted joking, the ability to keep us all together, the ability to _never_ know when to keep his mouth shut."

"Hey!" He protested, though a smile was steady on his face.

"Well, it's true." Danny chuckled, the sound reverberated nicely around Ellie, making her immediately feel warmer and more comfortable and focused again on what Sam was saying.

"That's what makes him, _him._ He's not exactly like his parents, he's _him_. And well, Danny's pretty obvious, but his ability to have found his sense of purpose in this world, his hero complex, the love he has for all of us, the way he stands up for what he believes and most definitely his love for NASA. So different from his parents, even if a few of his characteristics are similar."

When Sam didn't continue right away, Ellie asked, "And what about you?"

"Me? Well, for one I'm a vegan, which is totally opposite of my parents. My focus of not guiding myself under the normal stereotypical influence. I'm a force to be reckoned with, I have passion in all that I do, but my heart always seems to win out in the end."

"Knew you were good under there somewhere." Tucker teased.

"Eh," She shrugged, "As long as word doesn't get out. I think we can survive with that knowledge."

Ellie chuckled, "Yeah, all that doesn't sound like your parents."

"Exactly. DNA doesn't _define_ you. It only ties you to those two people." Sam came to the realization that she knew what kind of connection they could keep. "And I know you've never had a mom figure before, and I've never tried being a mom before, but…"

"Except to us." She heard Tucker whisper in Danny's ear, but she ignored the comment.

"You don't have to!" Ellie jerked up straight in Danny's arms, not letting Sam continue. She shrank back into herself, having realized her interruption.

"No, you go ahead." Sam nodded in her direction.

"Uh, well you don't have to try to be a _mom_. I don't really even know what it's like to _have_ a _mom_."

"Think in the way Jazz treats Danny." Sam suggested.

"Oh!" She nodded, now understanding. "But that's okay. Can we just, just stay the way we are? You know, like sisters?"

Sam nodded quickly and the tight ball of fear in her chest released only by a tiny sliver. Ellie beamed and quickly moved off Danny and into Sam's arms. Though she wasn't comfortable with human contact at the moment, she swallowed down her protest and gave comfort to Ellie.

"She definitely got the Fenton hug gene." Danny chuckled.

"You know…" Tucker whispered and snickered, "If they're theoretically sisters, that means you're theoretically in love with your daughter."

Danny turned his eyes towards Tucker, giving him his, 'seriously' look. "Sometimes, I really, _really_ want to understand how your brain works, just so I can fix it."

Tucker threw his head back and laughed, "You _wish_ you had my brain." Danny rolled his eyes and pushed Tucker over onto the carpet.

Sam and Ellie ignored the boys, "We'll just continue how we have been, okay?" Sam gently moved Ellie away in the hug so they were only touching each other's shoulder.

"I'd like that." Ellie agreed, then pulled away from Sam entirely, serving her need to refrain too much physical contact at the moment. "I like how we are _now_."

"Me too." Sam side smiled, settling her hands in her lap. "Just because what that paper says is true, it's about the connections you make with people and our connection is doing good for us."

Ellie smiled in return, then moved to sit next to Sam instead of in front of her, like she had been earlier, to make a complete circle once more. "Soooo, new question. How did he _do_ this? Like how did he make me out of both sets of DNA?"

"Let's look it up." Danny reached for the folder with Ellie's basic information on the front. The first page he flipped to was basic information about him and the following page was basic information about Sam. However, the third page began the detailed description of what was titled: CLONE 203.

"So basically," Danny began as he started to read through it, "Vlad took both of my DNA strands, then took Sam's DNA that he had gotten. A piece of her hair. He took X from Sam and the Y from both of mine to create, you, El. He wanted to see how it differed from a male clone, to distinguish whether or not it would help stabilize better. That's the best way to explain it without all of the technical jargon.

"He goes down further to explain that you automatically worked better than all the clones and you were actually able to transform without melting, unlike all of the other's before. He wrote that he was unsure of why you had stabilized while the others had not. Including clones 173, 174, 175, 176 and lastly 178."

"You mean, 177." Sam stated.

Danny shook his head, "No, 178. That's what this says. Those clones did not stabilize half as well as Ellie, except for Clone 178 even though they all had," his eyes widened, " _mid-morph DNA_."

"What!" They all exclaimed as Danny read off the information.

"Tucker, do you have information on these failed clones?"

"I _should_." He quickly snatched up his computer and searched the files he had specifically for those clone's numbers. "Okay, so…" he was happy to note that he had all of the clone's information. "I have the failed clone's information. Which ones do you want to look at first?"

"178."

Tucker opened the documents and was confronted with a similar page to Ellie's. "Okay, it says here that the DNA used was Danny's and mixed with a small amount of Sam's and the mid-morph DNA is marked as 'yes'. Let's see if there's more information on it." He scrolled down to the next page where a detailed information was on how Vlad performed the experiment. His nerves were running high as he skimmed through the beginning of the report, looking for the word 'mid-morph'. He reached the first focus on it halfway down the page and his nerves went straight into overdrive and almost felt as though he was going to either throw-up.

"Uh…"

"What?" Danny asked.

"Why do you look like you're going to pass out?" Sam looked him over in deep concern.

"The mid-morph DNA he used wasn't _yours_. It was _his_." Tucker looked up at the group with fear in his eyes.

"What?" Danny growled, his eyes flashed to green.

"It says it right here." Tucker tried to swallow the lump rising in his throat. "He used _his own_ mid-morph DNA to stabilize the clone. _But_ this one destabilized right away." He scrolled to find the last of the report. "It says here that this was the last time he would use his own mid-morph DNA and continue to try and get your own."

"And that's all of the clones listed?" Sam questioned, her fists so tight her knuckles had gone white.

"Let me check." He pulled up each of the clone's files from 173 to 176 and read through them quickly. "They each say the same thing as 178. Though the levels implemented through each DNA sequence is a bit different. And Sam's DNA wasn't used on any of them. It was _Valerie's_."

Everyone gasped in shock.

"Are you fucking kidding me!" Sam couldn't believe what she was hearing. First they find out Vlad used her own DNA in the clones. Now they learn that Valerie's was used as well! Sam wondered just how messed up Vlad really was.

"I mean, Vlad's always been nuts. But _this_ …" Ellie didn't have any more words, she only shook her head.

Danny's anger only continued to grow. He did his best to keep it from flooding into his and Sam's link. It was hard as he could feel her own shock and anger flow through him. His eyes were blazing green and he focused his energy into forming an ice crystal in his hands. "He's insane. We need to put a stop to this. He's trying to play God." He shook his head and the ice crystal grew larger in his hands. "Each clone had a mind of some sort. Had a motive. They may have only been barely sentient for all we know, but Vlad essentially _killed_ them." He sighed sadly, "This isn't _right._ This is so much worse than we thought it was." He could only shake his head again.

"I wonder if Valerie knows…" Tucker wondered aloud as he read through a few of the reports. Though it seemed that whatever little thing Vlad tried to do to stabilize them longer, it never seemed to work. The longest surviving clone out of them all only lasted a few days. Barely.

"If she did, Vlad would have been dead by now." Sam gritted. "No way would she let this go."

"I'll say. Her temper rivals even Danny's." Ellie shook her head.

"You know it's interesting what you said about Danny's temper." Tucker squinted at the screen as he looked at each tab of document he had pulled up for Clones' 173, 174, 175, 176 and 178.

"What's interesting?" Danny looked at him quizzically.

"Well, on each of the reports it says that their tempers were high; the ones that survived past the first hour. They were each demanding and fierce and destroyed whatever Vlad had them do."

"Well, _that_ sounds pretty normal considering that mix of DNA is similar to Dan's." Sam spat.

"True. And it's even more interesting about clone 178 because it mentions that they were the least aggressive, and he wrote," he leaned in further to make sure he was reading the information correctly, "He wrote, that the Clone was still aggressive, but was not as bad as its' predecessors, especially Clone 177.

"Wait a second." Danny looked up from the ice crystal, that had grown to the size of a volleyball, to look at Tucker, hearing his own thoughts echoed in Sam's mind. "177? What information is there on 177? Why wasn't that clone included in the same mid-morph DNA group if the clone that was made after it was?"

"I don't know. But we can find out." Tucker quickly moved the clone's documents #173-6 and 178 to the left side of his screen and opened the file for Clone 177. As he skimmed over the document the information left him horror struck. "Vlad fucked up. I seriously hope this clone doesn't exist anymore." Tucker's eyes were wide and his fingers rested over his mouth in shock.

The group moved to sit around Tucker so they could all read the report.

"He used his own ghost DNA _and_ his mid-morph DNA to try and get the perfect clone." Danny read barely above a whisper. "He _made_ Dan in this universe. He actually _made_ him"

"Danny," Sam cautioned and reached out a hand, not only physically but mentally.

He brushed both away, he didn't deserve it. "Is it alive? Please tell me that _that clone_ destabilized." He reached for Tucker's touch pad, but Tucker smacked Danny's hand away.

"I thought that it only happened in that alternate time line?" Ellie asked in confusion. She knew all about Dan. But that was all she knew. She didn't understand how a clone that was built similar could cause this much mayhem between the group, if it had destabilized anyway.

"Yes, he did only exist in that timeline, but Clockwork has told us that sometimes little instances get through that are subtle markers to that timeline. Like Clone 177 or a while back,"

"Just tell me if Clone 177 destabilized." Danny pushed, cutting off Sam's explanation.

Tucker scrolled further down towards the end of the document. "It says here that Clone 177 lasted five days. Vlad was in the process of trying to kill him when he destabilized on his own on the fifth day."

Danny let out a relieved sigh, though he still felt as though he could throw up with the knowledge that his alternate self was made again. "Thank the gods. I'm so sick and tired of having to clean up his messes." The ice crystal grew an inch bigger. "And this would have been the icing on the cake. What does he think he's doing?! That clone could have ended up so much worse. And he has no idea. No idea what they could have done. No idea." Danny shook his head as he continued to rant, "He could have been killed, and by his own stupidity none-the-less. And _that_ clone lasted five days. I mean what damage was done? He was mostly ghost, so we know that their morals of humanity were barely there, which begs the question of what made Vlad try one last time after 177 to use his own mid-morph DNA in 178?

"I know he's a scientist – among his other titles – but that right there just seems like he wants to commit suicide, though I guess not intentionally. Not that he deserves death _anyway_ , but making _that clone_ , I just can't believe that it actually happened. We have to make sure _nothing_ like this happens again. I can't let him ruin what we have. I'll do whatever I can to make sure he doesn't exist again."

Tucker's and Sam's minds instantly went to the 4th alternate timeline they had to fix where Danny committed suicide to prevent his grief from overcoming him and leaving the temptation of Dan too close. Though they had been killed during the school shooting, they were the ones that Clockwork had gotten to go back and prevent the shooters – Seniors who had had enough of people not listening to them at the school (they were practically insane) - and Sam and Tucker had been shown by Clockwork the moment before Danny pulled the trigger. It was something none of them ever wanted to experience again.

Danny of course saw what Sam had been thinking through their link and jumped to a defense between her and Tucker. "That's not going to happen again. We've already gotten Clockwork on the plan to tell us if anyone of us has any one future possibility of _that_. But I won't be making that mistake again. _I promise_. But I also won't let this kind of crap happen again."

Sam nodded, feeling his certainty, while Tucker gripped his shoulder in understanding. Ellie was a bit confused, however,

"What are you going on about?"

"That's _definitely_ a story for another time." Danny interjected before Tucker could begin the story.

"But…" Ellie furrowed her eyebrows.

"Later, El." Danny sighed, however Sam decided to jump in, despite Danny's aversion to the topic.

"You know, you _should_ be told about our… _alternate_ selves."

"Sam!" Danny protested loudly; his eyes widened and hands went out in his 'are you serious' look.

Sam rolled her eyes. "Really, Danny. Now's as good a time as any. Even more so, because of this new information."

"Yes, I agree that she should know about that, however right now with everything we've just learned I think we can take a break on this type of new information."

"No, it's okay!" Ellie tried to jump in, but Tucker gently motioned for her to stay out of it for the moment. He wasn't sure how this was going to play out.

"If not now, then when?" Sam demanded. "There's a perfectly good excuse for us to explain what's gone on to her. And explain why this clone is such a big deal."

"You're right, but _not right now_." He insisted, and the ice ball grew slightly larger, but Sam kept her eyes locked on Danny's bright green ones.

"And why _not_?" Sam cocked her head inquisitively and arched an eyebrow. She was trying to get a feel on him, but he had locked down his side of the link, which made her suspicious of where Danny was going with this whole thing.

"Can we just let this go?"

"No. You keep pushing and pushing away from this stuff. And not wanting to tell Ellie just shows that you've been doing just that again."

"I did not say that _I didn't want to tell her_. I just don't think _now_ is the best time." He insisted.

"Then when _is_ the best time, Danny?"

"Come on, Danny. At least tell her about the fourth timeline." Tucker jumped in to help Sam.

"Can we stop talking like I'm not here!" Ellie threw her arms up in annoyance.

"Look." Danny closed his eyes and sighed. "We can discuss alternate timelines all we want tomorrow or any other day." He sighed once more and met Ellie's eyes across their small circle, "But right now I want to find out whether or not Vlad made any documents pertaining to you, and any other legal things we might come across."

Sam crossed her arms but knew Danny's logic was sound, though she didn't like how he got there. She really wanted him to change his mind. She felt as though he was hiding behind the excuse to find out about documents that they practically already knew weren't there and had probably been burned.

"Okay." Ellie conceded and pulled over her file that had ended up in the middle of the floor, giving Danny a slight glare by narrowing her eyes and pursing her lips slightly, before looking down at the papers in her hands.

The look shocked Danny so much that he could finally place that glare to who he knew it belonged to. The control on his wall to Sam slipped and her anger, confusion and worry flooded through him and he knew she could hear his most recent thought.

' _Damn, you're right. She does look like me when she does that.'_ Sam was only slightly relieved that his wall had slipped. But she felt a bit calmer knowing he was listening to her again, even if by accident. _'You know, panicking about speaking to someone about what you almost did means you're not dealing with it.'_

' _Sam.'_ He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. From the other side, he saw Tucker roll his eyes before picking up his computer and settle it in front of himself to work through the electronic documents.

' _Seriously. I can feel how panicked you are. Even if you've only let a little show through the link. And you weren't like that before, which means that you panicked when you thought of telling her.'_

' _I really don't want to talk about this right now.'_ He insisted.

' _You can't escape your problems Danny. I thought you'd've learned that by now.'_

A serious of images flashed suddenly through Sam's mind, having come from Danny: Their homecoming dance from their freshman year, Danny standing in the middle of Dash's living room dressed in a gaudy outfit and the others dressed as 'losers' of Casper High, Valerie firing weapons at him, playing Doomed on Lancer's computer, the Haunted house competition with Dash, splitting himself in two, Dan, the Ghostwriter, Vlad, Ellie, Danny sitting in the room of the mansion his parents owned for practically two seconds playing video games.

' _I don't…'_

' _Danny.'_

"I'm going to go on patrol." Danny abruptly stood up from the carpet, still holding his ice crystal. His walls secured once more.

"Want me to come with you?" Ellie asked, though a bit hopeful, she kept a straight face.

"No, that's okay. If I need any back up, I'll call."

"Since you're going, can you stop by my house and get my overnight bag?"

"Yeah." Danny said to Sam without looking at her.

"Can you get me clothes, too?" Ellie asked next.

"Sure. What do you want?"

"Uh, a pair of sweats and one of those new Nightmerica t-shirts, Sam got me."

"Alright." Danny nodded and quickly transformed into Phantom. "I'll be back." He flew a few inches off the ground, still holding the ice crystal, then flew out the door and into the Ghost Zone, the door effectively closing behind him.

"Well, since Mr. Snippy is gone. I'm going to go burn off energy in the gym. Ellie if you wanna join me, I'll spar with you. _And_ I'll tell you about our alternate selves." Sam got up and stretched her arms above her head.

"But Danny said…"

"Danny's being a little bitch about the whole thing." Tucker rolled his eyes. "This is important for you to know, just as much as it's important for Jazz to know."

Ellie grinned mischievously, and Sam was instantly reminded of herself when she got a devious plan – she'd seen the look enough times shown back at her through hers and Danny's link, she could easily see it on Ellie's face. "Let's go spar then." She set her manila file folder on the ground and stood up. "You coming Tucker?"

He nodded, "Yeah. But I'll leave the fighting to you two and just stay on my laptop." He chuckled and began gathering up the items he was going to bring downstairs.

"I'll wait till you're down there to begin the story. Why don't we get changed?" Sam suggested.

Ellie looked down at her jeans and t-shirt. "You sure?"

"Yeah. It's just regular sparring and I think we'll be able to get more frustration out if we're not restricted by certain articles of clothing at the moment." Sam side smiled and headed for the stairs.

"Sounds reasonable." Ellie agreed and followed her up. "You have something I can wear, since I didn't bring a bag of clothes with me?"

"Yeah, I brought a couple of things." Sam reassured her.

They quickly changed into sweatpants and t-shirts before heading downstairs. Tucker was already set up on the edge of the mat down in the basement and had a Dumpty Humpty playlist playing through the speakers of his computer.

"Ooh! Good workout music. Speaking of, I seriously need to update my IPod. It's so outdated it's not even funny."

"We'll make sure to hook yours up to my computer when we get back to Amity tomorrow morning." Sam said as she began a quick warm-up.

"Awesome!" Ellie beamed and quickly fell into Sam's lead of high knees and toy soldiers among other acts to warm the body without stretching. "So," She finally got the courage to pursue their previous conversation, "What did you want to tell me about this alternate timeline?"

" _Timelines_." Sam emphasized.

"Wait." Ellie paused in her warm-up and looked at Sam with wide eyes. "There's more than _one_?"

"Yep! Four others actually." Tucker answered instead, "We can be pretty messed up. But we think we've got this timeline going pretty well, so far." He smiled.

"Don't jinx us, Bad Luck Tuck." Sam narrowed her eyes at him trying to keep her tone playful, but it came out clipped instead.

He held his hands up in defense, clearly seen over his computer, "I'm just saying is all..."

"Yeah," Sam rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest, "Yeah, that's what you say and then we typically have to deal with something biting us in the ass."

Tucker pushed his glasses back up onto his face, "If you're going to be that snippy about it, why don't you go join Danny."

Sam sighed, closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. "Sorry." She breathed out before opening her eyes and looked him in the eyes, "I didn't mean to start that. At least not like that."

"I know." Tucker breathed in deeply and let it out slowly, "But you know what happens when you don't control your tone." Sam looked away from him, a sour look on her face.

"I know." She grumbled to herself then turned to look at Ellie. "Alright, whatever, let's just start, I gotta get this energy out somehow."

"What about the timelines?" Ellie asked in concern, but stood in a ready position as Sam slid into hers.

"I'll start us off." Tucker said and put his computer down to the side of him.

"You ready?" Sam asked. Ellie nodded and Sam made the first move, beginning their spar.

"The one that Danny didn't want to tell you about right now was the fourth timeline we experienced. It happened towards the end of the middle of last semester. Me, Sam and Jazz had been in the school while Danny was off fighting Vlad.

"It had been during World History, second hour, when the school fire alarms had blared. We hadn't known at the time what was going on. And had been surprised when the alarms had stopped suddenly after going off. But it was only a few minutes later when we heard the first gun shots ring out." Tucker visibly shivered at the memory. "Our teacher, Miss Reylon, this was only her second year at the school, she told us to go back to the classroom seeing as we had left at the sound of the fire alarm. We, among the other students in the hallways ran back to our classrooms.

"Except we… we weren't fast enough. At the stairs that led back up to our classroom on the third floor stood, Tony Smith with an assault rifle in his hands and it was pointed towards us. He told us to make our way back through the hallway, calmly, towards the gym. He told us that if anyone tried to run he'd shoot us down like dogs. Miss Reylon tried to reason with him. Told him if he stood down now, that she would do her best to make sure he would get help. Which of course set him off, seeing as he was already messed up. He raised his rifle easily and shot her in the head."

Ellie gasped and stopped in the sparring, covering her mouth with her hands to stare at Tucker with wide, shocked eyes. Sam stumbled trying not to hit Ellie when their pattern halted but, Tucker continued as though he hadn't heard her, almost lost in the trance of the horrible alternate memory.

"She hit the ground hard. Then…Tony, he…uh… Tony asked:

"' _Anymore stupid people wanna try and help me?'_

"I could tell there were a few people including Sam that wanted to say something but they kept their mouths shut. He told us to get moving and we walked slowly to the gym. Traveling through the hallways there were a few bodies laid out of doorways and few lined the lockers. When we passed the front classrooms near the office you could see into the doors and you could only see dead bodies. Later we would learn that those had been classrooms filled with Senior students.

"When we reached the gym all of the underclassmen were sitting up in the bleachers with most of the Junior class. But the Senior class – what was left – was lined up on the basketball court. Jazz had been sat down under the basketball hoop closest to the doors to the hallway. Three others stood in the middle of the basketball court with an assortment of guns that I can't really remember. But two were definitely machine guns. But the one person who stuck out the most was Caleb Minor. He was known to be in one of the gangs that runs around Everton.

"Mine and Sam's class was one of the last ones to enter the gym, so we sat on the first row of bleachers. No teachers were among us. After which the worst began. Caleb was clearly the one calling the shots, his friends followed easily. He began calling certain seniors forward to the middle of the gym. Few went easily. Well, not easily but they didn't fight it. The first one to fight Caleb's orders had been a girl named Emmeline and Tony shot her on spot. I remember Caleb's voice echoing amongst the cries of everyone, asking if anyone else wanted to fight him. Emmeline's boyfriend tried to, but was shot as well.

"I remember feeling as if my blood had frozen while I sat there watching what was going on. Me and Sam were holding hands, I remember my hand had been numb at that time.

"Caleb however wasn't done and brought everyone forward that he wanted. No one else fought. The last person he brought forward was Jazz. But he didn't allow her to sit with the rest of them. Caleb gripped the upper part of her arm and dragged her in front of them all. Me and Sam wanted to get up and help Jazz, but the other two of Caleb's lackey's – both seniors – were pointing guns at all of us on the bleachers.

"' _You're the reason we're all in this mess, Jazz._ ' Caleb had told her loud enough that everyone of us could hear. She only stared up at him in slight terror and shook her head. _'Don't you think they deserve to know the reason they're going to die?'_ he demanded and forced her towards the middle of the basketball court.

"I remember her pleading with him. That she could still help him. You see, Caleb was seeing the school psychiatrist for personal issues at home. Jazz had taken to helping out in the counselor's office and she was always around during Caleb's sessions. She had told him to open up to his parents about why he participates in the Gang violence. He had been quite excited to do it, from what Jazz had said. But apparently, it hadn't gone over so well. He told her:

"' _You're going to watch as I kill everyone who ever made fun of me for what I do. For what I've had to go through. And then you'll be last. But I want them to know that you're the reason for their deaths. You killed them. And you're going to watch'_.

"After that he opened fire on all of them with Tony. It was brutal. I won't give you those details. But there were a few students in the stands who protested loudly, standing up and yelling for their siblings or cousins or their friends. They were shot down as well.

"Then Caleb forced Jazz to her knees. The whole time she was pleading with him that they could fix things. That there was still time to make things right. But Caleb wouldn't hear it. He murdered her, too.

"Of course me and Sam didn't sit quietly when this happened. We screamed out that she was only trying to _help_. That there were people out there to _help_ him. But before the words barely left our mouths he, himself, had aimed and fired at us. All I remember about that is blinding white hot pain and then nothing."

"But!" Ellie interrupted, now seated on the floor, "But something had to have forced the change! What…how did… how did you guys change what happened?!"

"Well, that wasn't all that actually happened." Tucker told her sadly.

"Oh… ke-keep going." She urged, hair standing on end.

"In the same timeline, before we all awoke with different memories of what happened Danny found out what had happened. During this entire ordeal, he had been fighting Vlad down by the warehouse district. When he had gotten back to the school he was presented with the aftermath of the shooting. When he found out what had happened to all of us, he… he went to his dark side. He ripped into Caleb and Tony and the other two seniors that had helped in the shooting as well as the three other people part of Caleb's gang that had helped stage off the police. Danny just… he just lost himself and killed them all for what they did.

"Then he broke down and ended up revealing himself to everyone. I'm not going to detail anything about that, either. It was after the funerals that Danny molded himself a bullet mixed with gun powder and blood blossom. He hoped that the blood blossom would keep his ghost self from trying to revive itself. It ended up working actually. Or as far as we know.

"Clockwork had decided to intervene shortly – a split second – after this action had occurred so we only have his word, actually. You see Clockwork hadn't intervened earlier because he had been positive that if the choice came to it, Danny would never kill himself. But Danny's determination to make sure Dan never happens was too strong. He would do whatever he could to make sure Dan didn't happen. Of course at the time this happened, he hadn't really learned yet, how it would all transpire. But still it happened.

"Of course Clockwork went back in time before the whole thing went down. Before school that day began and told us what was going to happen. Since we knew what was going to happen, we were able to make a plan ourselves. A few people were killed, including Miss Reylon, however Clockwork informed us that no matter what it had been their time to move on. But that didn't make us feel any better. We were able to call the police and get something going before things had gotten even worse and because Danny didn't go and fight Vlad that morning – knowing what would happen if he did – he was able to overshadow Caleb and Tony and the others and incapacitate them. And everything turned out relatively okay in the end."

Tucker finally ended and looked up from where he had been staring at the floor to see Ellie staring at him in the same position as earlier. Sam had shifted though, still needing to work out her frustration, she had moved to one of punching bags, where she continued her exercises with wrapped hands.

"Sooooo," Ellie spoke slowly after a full minute of silence, "Danny didn't want to tell me about this timeline because he was so distraught that he killed himself?"

"Yes." Sam answered, and punched the bag a bit harder than before.

"That's just fucking stupid! I can't believe that actually happened. Oh my gods! Are you guys okay? I mean, what am I saying, of course you're not okay, but I mean. Is aunt Jazz alright? Like, just… just… holy crap." She put her head in her hands and stared at the floor.

"It's a lot to take in." Tucker amended. He moved from his spot to sit next to her and wrapped an arm around the back of her shoulders. "We're a lot better now than before. Jazz of course, took it the hardest. It took a long time for her to come to terms with the fact that she couldn't save Caleb. Even though she wanted to. She spoke to CrystalRose of the Far Frozen a lot over what happened. It really helped her to talk to someone of a warrior race about the events."

Ellie nodded in understanding, "I'm sure. They're really good ghosts. But how did she remember? Didn't she have different memories too?"

"We asked to have our previous memories restored. It was a bit messy at first, on trying to distinguish both memories, but I'm not sorry that I have them again. Mnemosyne, a friend of Pandora's, helped us out. I think she's come to expect us from time to time now."

"Wow." She looked over at him and Tucker gave her a small smile. " _Just wow_."

"You going to be okay there, Ellie?" Sam questioned and threw a side kicked at the bag.

Ellie nodded again, though Sam couldn't see. "Yeah. A lot to take in I guess. I just never thought about there being more than one alternate timeline. And now there's five and this one sounds so horribly messed up and it's just amazing to think that in some other timeline, I wouldn't have any of you guys anymore. Which," She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders, "is kind of selfish thinking, but it's so weird to think about because you're here. Like _really here_ , right now. Is that weird?"

Sam stopped in her ministrations and wiped the sweat from her brow with her T-Shirt. "Weird is part of our everyday lives. But _no_ it's not weird compared to normal standards."

"Okay." Ellie nodded and leaned further into Tucker's hold.

She sat there for a long while going over the information she had been given. It was becoming weirdly easy for her to think that there was an alternate version of their world out there, an alternate timeline, where all of them were gone. It was hard for her to wrap her mind around the idea of Danny, Sam, Tucker and Jazz being dead; hard to imagine in any timeline. But viewing it as an entirely separate section of time it become slightly easier to bear.

But all in all, she was glad that they had told her. Now that she understood what had happened only 8 months ago she understood why Danny had freaked out so much when they had discovered clone 177. She couldn't understand though why he hadn't wanted to tell her about the horrible… situation, but she didn't see him as any less – which she figured was part of his aversion to explaining it to her – if anything she admired his strength in his actions. She didn't like the fact that he killed himself. She didn't like it at all, but his reasoning to make sure, _really sure,_ that his evil self didn't have a chance to resurrect again held something to be admired because she knew she could never do that. Ellie knew that if she had been in Danny's shoes that she could never do that; have that sort of strength to put a 'maybe' in front of his life.

"Did that happen again?"

"Which part?" Sam asked from beside her. She had sat down a few minutes ago, having decided she had gotten out her frustrations.

"The suicide."

"No." Both Sam and Tucker answered, shaking their heads.

Ellie sighed with relief. "Good." She nodded to herself, "Good. So, do I get to hear about the others?"

"Well that was quick." Sam chuckled, though a tad darkly. Hearing Tucker tell the entire story had hit her harder then she thought it would. It was different then having sessions with Jazz. It was hearing the entire thing over again. In one setting. And she could kind of see why Danny hadn't wanted to talk about it tonight. But she was actually happy that they had told Ellie. Getting it out into the open once again reminded her of what could happen. What Danny himself was capable of. And what they had to cherish. Each time there was a horrible happenstance it was Clockwork who would come in and save them. And she reminded herself each time that at some point Clockwork won't come in and give them a do over.

"I figured a way to deal with it. It happened, yet it's not happening right now. Therefore I move on from it and deal with what's next."

"That's very mature of you." Tucker commented and dropped the arm from around her shoulders.

"Well, it was either keep remembering constantly about Vlad or move on from it in my everyday life." Ellie shrugged.

Sam wanted to mention that it didn't seem to be helping her out with her dreams and nightmares; but she decided to keep her mouth shut. They could focus on that problem at a later time. Or well, Jazz could.

"So you're ready to hear the next one?"

"I think so."

"You _think_ so?" Sam arched a brow.

"I know so." Ellie rephrased quickly.

"Because we don't have to start on it right now." Tucker reassured. "We can wait. I know that that timeline can be pretty intense."

"No, I know." She tried to reassure. "But I wanna hear about the others."

"Okay, only if you're sure." Sam said.

"I am. Really." She encouraged.

Sam nodded and looked to Tucker who locked eyes with her. She could tell that Tucker wanted her to begin the story, which she did without complaint seeing as he was the one to actually tell the last story and it took a lot out of a person.

"This is about the second timeline. And in this one, Danny was killed by the Observants. Well, the Observants had gotten someone, that wasn't Clockwork, to do their dirty work."

"Seriously!" Ellie couldn't believe what she had just heard.

"Seriously." Sam nodded, "They were so sure that he would turn into Dan again, because they had watched the fourth timeline actually. They were too terrified that he would turn dark once again. So, instead of listening to Clockwork like they should have, they sent someone out to do their bidding.

"At the time we thought we could overcome the assassin that was sent. They were intense. I'm not sure how else to explain it, but even though Danny had more powers, this assassin was skilled in a fight. We figured they were some sort of ghost fighter when they were alive because of their skills in defeating Danny. Or at least they had trained as a real assassin when they were alive. Me and Tucker had been placed in some type of containment bubble the instant he had shown up. Which was out of nowhere, so we were already at a disadvantage when he appeared when we were out on patrol.

"It was terrifying to watch, and the fight lasted for a long time. I'm not sure how long, but it seemed to get over quicker than how long it actually lasted. Me and Tucker didn't take what happened too well."

"Well, that's to be expected." Ellie commented.

"True." Sam shrugged half-heartedly. "But after burying him, we went to work on finding that assassin. Which was actually after having a breakdown at Clockwork's, because we couldn't understand how he could let this happen. He only told us that things would right themselves out. Which only pissed us off even more. Anyway, it took some time, but we were finally able to track him down. And he easily told us that the Observants were responsible."

"Okay, Sam's leaving out the funniest part." Tucker smiled over at Sam who only narrowed her eyes at him.

"I did not."

"Yes you did!" Tucker laughed. "You see," he turned to look at Ellie, "when we had found the door to this assassin ghost, we were _packing_. I mean _seriously packing_. So we don't even knock when we get there, just bust down the door – Sam style – opening it easily. We had expected a fight, but instead we found the assassin sitting on some old khaki colored recliner and watching TV. Our guns were ready as we stood there, but the assassin only spoke in a low voice. _'I knew you'd be here sooner or later'_. Which of course freaked me out, but Sam kept pushing me into the room.

"I asked them how they knew that we were coming, when they abruptly turned the recliner around, a gun rested on their lap. I admit that I screeched like a terrified little girl, but they waved us both off. They said that everyone knows how tight our group is. And many ghosts know of us, so when They saw that we were with Danny, they immediately knew that we had to be incapacitated. After which I asked why they killed Danny. That we had never seen them before now, so why come to Amity Park and do what they did? The Assassin told us that they were told by the Observants to kill Danny. We of course didn't take that information very well."

Sam picked up now on the story, "After we ranted for about an hour we both came to the conclusion that the Observants needed to pay for what they did. They were doing things without taking all of the facts into consideration. We decided to put a stop to them.

"The assassin helped us out on specific weaponry that he had. It was better than traveling back to Fenton Works and taking Fenton weapons into the fight. We essentially went on a killing spree in the Tower of the Observants. It was bloody and intense, but afterwards we felt a little more at ease." Sam sighed. "But we didn't exactly stop there."

"Exactly, any ghost that we hadn't made friends with, we didn't exactly take it easy on them." Tucker continued. "We stayed at home, but we didn't really focus on school anymore or the rest of our lives. We focused on making sure no one got hurt from ghosts again. We killed ghosts all the time now. We almost essentially turned into a scarier version of the Guys in White. We didn't hurt the ghosts we knew but anyone else, if they hurt anyone in Amity Park, they were dead. Easily."

"So, what happened? How did everything get set right again?"

"Actually this one was all Clockwork." Sam chuckled a bit darkly. "We hadn't gone to see him, so he came to see us. Or well, _sent_ for us. And he explained that by continuing down this path the only end was destruction. Not only our own, but the order of balance. Still not sure what balance he wants to keep, seeing as he mentions that multiple times during our other timelines. But anyway, he told us that he could set the time back and he would show the Observants what would happen. Apparently, it worked.

"We didn't have to watch Danny be killed and we didn't go on some kamikaze rampage through the Observants Tower. It was weird reliving that month. With all of the different memories. But after it passed everything sort of became normal once again. At least until the next big disaster."

Sam looked down at Ellie to see her staring at her and Tucker with an opened mouth and eyes wide. She chuckled at the shocked look on her face, "Didn't quite expect all that did ya?"

"Like seriously? I don't even have words! Like… what!" Ellie looked at them in disbelief.

"Yep! Didn't think me and Sam could become crazy ghost hunting people, did you?" Tucker laughed, having thrown an arm around Sam's shoulders.

"Well, I mean I guess it kinda crossed my mind, but not like that!" Ellie's mouth stayed open, in surprise.

"We did." They had both dealt with their actions and were able to speak about the second timeline with more ease than any of the other timelines. "Not that it really improved much later." He muttered to Sam lowly. She elbowed him in his side.

"Okay, so you went kinda crazy. But didn't you say that Clockwork said when you went to see him after Danny had been killed, that everything was going to right itself in the end?"

Sam and Tucker shared a glance, that had Ellie on edge, "Right. Well…" Tucker began and dropped his arm from around Sam.

"Sometimes, if you haven't noticed, Clockwork can be wrong." Sam finished for Tucker. "He figured after our stunt with the Observants that we'd go back to living like normal. Ish. That was one of the paths he saw. Of course we didn't take the path he expected which led to the whole intervention thing by him."

"Whoa."

"I mean, he's a ghost too. Yeah, he can control time and what not and he's super powerful, but it doesn't make him any less of a ghost and he makes mistakes. Plus he figured that Jazz would be able to pull us out of our stupors." Tucker shrugged.

"Jazz!" Ellie gasped and looked back and forth between them, "What happened to Aunt Jazz during this timeline?"

"Jazz, was trying to get everything dealt with. She was dealing with Maddie and Jack. Making the funeral arrangements and what not and dealing with what happened herself. We kinda, left her to pick up the pieces when we went after the Observants." Sam picked under her nails, still feeling a touch of guilt for doing that. "Sometimes she would help us patrol, but mainly she just made sure that we were living. Even if we were pretty much zoned out the entire time."

"That was really mean of you guys to do."

A roll of guilt shredded through both of them. "We know." Tucker amended. "It was also when we were still letting her into the group. So we weren't really friends with her yet. She was just Danny's sister at the time. So we didn't feel so bad when it all went on. But afterwards we made sure to improve our friendships with her. Now it'd be weird if we weren't close to her."

"She's practically like the sister I never asked for." Sam smiled.

"Hmm," Tucker pursed the side of his lips, "I wouldn't go that far. You're more my sister than she is."

Sam turned to look at him, her eyes narrowed slightly as she looked at him. He instantly felt as though she could see through him, though he wasn't sure what she was looking for. She opened her mouth to say something but Ellie beat her to it.

"So if that's the second timeline, what's the third timeline?"

"You sure you wanna hear the rest of them?" Tucker asked, thankful for the redirection as Sam turned to look away from him.

"Yeah. I mean, I know the other ones. And there's only two more. Might as well get it over with now, you know? Like pulling off a band-aid."

"Damn, she definitely belongs to you." Tucker smirked at Sam. She only rolled her eyes.

"I'll tell mine and then you'll tell yours?" She asked him.

"Sounds like a plan, Sam." He pointed finger guns at her and clicked his tongue. "See what I did there?"

She held her palm up towards him, "Stop. You'll get worse then Danny." She rolled her eyes then heaved in a heavy sigh before beginning, "Alright so, in the third alternate timeline. It was myself that turned dark and…"

"Whoa," Ellie held her hands up for Sam to stop, "Okay, so the only time a new timeline happens is when one of you goes evil or dark or whatever?" she arched an eyebrow.

"Pretty much." Tucker nodded in response. It was pretty fucked up though, he admitted to himself.

"Fun." Ellie deadpanned.

"Hey, if you don't want to hear the rest, we don't have to go into it." Sam reached out and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"No!" She instantly perked up. "No, I really want to hear them. I just wanted to make sure I was following along correctly."

Sam nodded in understanding and pulled her arm back. "Okay, then. Now, as I was saying, when I went dark I let Undergrowth gain control over me."

"But…" Ellie quickly snapped her jaw shut when Sam tilted her head slightly and pressed the side of her mouth in a tight line giving her, her _'really?'_ look. "Yep, got it. I'll shut up."

Sam breathed out another sigh, "It was interesting in how everything got cleaned up. Still not quite sure how it all happened but that's really not the point. Anyway, _basically_ , Vlad had had enough. He focused his energy on killing Danny. Said he'd find another way to make the perfect half-ghost son and he was taking Maddie no matter what.

"It basically sucked. Vlad when he's actually trying to kill you is terrifying. He never actually held back in previous fights, but he didn't fight as dirty as he could. And he _can fight dirty_. That's how we lost. Tucker… Tucker had been killed first."

Tucker jumped in quickly to give his small side to the story, "Let me tell you, I will never forget that experience." The word 'experience' sounded weird considering the context of what they were talking about, but he didn't know how else to describe it. He was here now. And alive. "He was ruthless and any chance he had, he took it." He shuddered, as his mind flashed to another time where his body was being burned from too many ectoplasm shots to the chest.

"So he just, what, forgot his humanity and went on a rampage?"

Sam shook her head, "No, he decided we were enough of a nuisance to not keep around anymore." She shrugged, "Though, that's from my understanding. I honestly couldn't tell you what happened. So, after Tucker was killed, as expected Danny went a bit crazy and rash making it easier for Vlad to get in his hits. I tried my god damned best to get Vlad's attention away from Danny, but he was determined to finish him off before he did me in. Of course, I knew I wasn't going to last much longer in my physical state and had to figure out some way to knockout Vlad.

"Most of what happened is fairly blurry in my memory. Only a few things really stick out the most you know? Obviously one of them was when Tucker died. Another was when I used the Plasmius Maximus on Vlad. He had had it with him and used it on Danny, which sequentially lead to his own death. Okay, wait I got ahead of myself." Sam held up her index finger to pause in her story telling.

"Vlad had pulled out the Plasmius Maximus – which is such a stupid name – to cripple Danny. So when Vlad used it on him, we still had weapons in my back pack. But that didn't help our case. But after Vlad hit Danny with the Plasmius Maximus he kinda just left it on the roof that they had been fighting over. Danny knew he had to get to the ground cause otherwise Vlad would have thrown him off the roof, that he had landed on. But it really didn't help him in the end. I'm not sure what happened exactly because I was making my way up through the apartment complex when Vlad killed Danny.

"I remember seeing him standing over Danny, very clearly. However, my actions following are pretty blurred. But what I figured out was that I was able to subdue Vlad by using the Plasmius Maximus and then since he never seemed to learn how to fight in his human form, at least beyond the basics and without ghost powers, was able to effectively defeat him and put him in a coma. Essentially."

"Whoa." Ellie looked at Sam with wide eyes. "And you don't remember doing it?"

Sam's nose scrunched up quickly before her features returned to normal. "Well, I remember it, but it's like I hit fast forward on the TV and I only catch bits and pieces." She raised her hand and turned it slightly side to side in a so-so motion.

"So, what happened after that? Cause right now, nothing that you've done really screams; Dark." Ellie urged.

"After the whole thing with Vlad, it was a bit crazy for a while. The city and the country found out about Danny and Vlad. Including Valerie. When we had the funerals, she came but afterwards she confronted me about what was being said in the news and in the local gossip. This was one of the times she hadn't taken the information very well. She was pretty pissed and believed that Phantom had taken over Danny. I actually had hoped that she would have taken it better. To keep a certain connection with someone. But even Valerie wasn't around anymore, not that us as a group hung out with her much at the time. And I didn't talk with her either. But it was somebody I knew that I could become friends with. Especially after all that happened.

"With no one else to really turn to, I ended up fairly depressed. But I didn't stop fighting ghosts. Which is kind of how this all came about. One day, probably about a month or so after the whole ordeal Undergrowth attacked Amity Park. And if I had been in a better mind set at the time it would have been easier to evade him. But I let him in my head and was put under his control. I know that the things I did while under his control were not good and I'm severely happy that Clockwork intervened and started things back to before Vlad attacked us.

"I'm not sure how it all happened, but he was able to have Lethe, from the Greek section of the Zone, come in and sort of have Vlad forget that he wanted to kill us all at least for the reasons that he was going to. But that's all I really know about it. Honestly, it's not as bad as we've had before. But it still sucked."

Sam took in a deep breath and let it out with a huff.

"I know that this wasn't made up, but seriously it almost sounds like it was." Ellie shook her head, "I can't believe you got Lethe to give Vlad amnesia."

"We didn't, Clockwork did." Sam reminded.

"Right, right. So… do you remember being under Undergrowth's influence? Like what happened and stuff?"

Sam shook her head. "Not much actually. There were times that I seemed to come out of it, but when I did it was similar to an out of body experience, so, really those are the only memories I have from that time."

"And you didn't ask, uh… what was her name again?"

"Mnemosyne."

"Right." She nodded, "Didn't you ask her to help you remember?"

Sam shook her head, eyes locked on her hands, "I already had enough of what I had done. I knew allowing myself to be under Undergrowth's control wasn't an ideal answer to my situation and even though I know I did horrible things while under his control, I know enough that it's going to stick with me forever."

"At least you had the influence of Undergrowth to get you to do some of those worst things." Tucker grumbled to himself causing Ellie to look over at him questionably.

"He's talking about his own timeline." Sam answered for him, looking back up from her hands to them both.

Ellie understood and addressed Tucker, "But what do you mean by what you said? Did… did you not… like, have…I have no idea what I'm trying to ask." She admitted.

"I think it'll be easier if I just start from the beginning." Tucker amended.

"It happened this past summer. Mid-June to be more precise." Sam informed before Tucker began.

"Right. Exactly." He nervously fidgeted with his fingers. "So, me and my family left for a vacation to visit my aunt, uncle and cousins down in Texas. We were only going to be there for a week and a half. Danny and Sam were still up here in Amity Park, so I checked the news every day to make sure everything was going okay. To make sure that they were doing okay while I was away. And they were. Everything was pretty normal actually, ghosts were still attacking every day, at their usual times. It was normal news, until it wasn't.

"The explosion of Fenton Works not only made headline news, but national news. The Fenton's are big name scientists after all."

"An explosion?" Ellie asked quietly, looking between them apprehensively.

"Yes." Tucker nodded, grimacing. "It wasn't the Fenton's fault. It was the GIW's. Of course, it took me a few weeks to figure it out. The thing is, is that it had taken out half the block. My parents took care of Danny, Jazz, Maddie and Jack's funerals while the Manson's obviously took care of Sam's. However, because so many perished in the explosion there was a wake for all that had been close to the people who had been killed.

"It was hard, being alone like that. I didn't know what to do with myself for the first few days after the funerals. So, I threw myself into trying to figure out what had actually happened. Because even though the police and said it had been ghost related and brushed it off, I knew something was amiss when the GIW had shown up, snooping around the site.

"I investigated the GIW. They didn't have a facility that they were working out of, so it was a bit difficult to find them at first, but once I did, it wasn't that hard to keep track of where the Guys in White moved around to – which they did every few days. It took what seemed forever, but I finally came across what they had had Maddie and Jack working on. They had given them ectoranium and wanted to know the affects it had with blood blossoms and ectoplasm. Separately and together. 2 parts ectoranium, 3 parts blood blossoms and 2 parts ectoplasm, created the massive explosion.

"I didn't take that information too well." Tucker shrugged and pulled in a deep breath. Sam reached over, placing a hand on his knee and he laced his fingers with hers for reassurance.

"I went after who had been head of the GIW at the time. A completely different person than who's in charge now. I went after them – I wasn't in a right state of mind at the time but I killed them for what they did to them. To the innocent people who had perished. For only thinking of killing ghosts and using the Fenton's to get what they wanted no matter the cost."

Silence reverberated through the basement for a moment before Ellie asked,

"How did everything change? What did Clockwork do?"

"I went to him."

"What! He just let it all happen?" Ellie looked back and forth between the older teens in shock once more.

"Kind of." He admitted. "He told me it was 'in the cards' or something. Like it was all supposed to happen this way. Honestly, I was just overly happy to have everybody back. Haven't exactly spoken about it all since."

"Well, that's just stupid." Ellie grumbled and folded her arms across her chest.

"Like I said, Clockwork can be wrong." Sam squeezed Tucker's hand before letting go and leaned back on them instead.

"But he sees like, _all outcomes_ , or possible outcomes. Why didn't he just tell you guys that this might be where you're heading?"

"Because he wants us to _'find our own path'_." Tucker used finger quotes while Sam rolled her eyes for the umpteenth time.

"Which doesn't quite make sense if he keeps stopping us and resetting time." Sam mused aloud.

"Exactly!" Ellie agreed instantly.

"Maybe we should have another talk with him about what he needs to tell us."

"Probably." Sam agreed with Tucker. "Because we really don't need to have another timeline get fucked up. We've been through this shit enough. Either let it play out or give us enough warning so we can fix it before it becomes an issue."

Tucker and Ellie nodded in agreement. Silence eased through the gym, thoughts running a muck in each person's mind. It was broken up a few times by Ellie asking a few things about what they had told her. Just reaffirming that it all had actually happened to help her understand how crazy things have gotten.

* * *

 **October 18th, 2014**

 **Friday night / Saturday morning**

 **Danny's Door**

 **12:20 a.m.**

When Danny returned to his Door he was hoping to find everybody asleep. He knew by looking through the link that Sam wasn't because her wall was still secured tightly in place, but he had hoped that she was in her room or something. Instead he found both Sam and Tucker seated in the kitchen drinking steaming cups of tea.

"Where's Ellie?" he asked quietly once he was fully in the kitchen.

"In bed." Sam answered.

Danny nodded in regard to her statement and went to the stove to heat water for his own tea he now wanted. It was silent in the kitchen. He could practically feel Tucker's annoyance along with Sam's in his mind. He let out a loud sigh. Now that he'd had time to cool off he could recognize that he had been a bit unreasonable about the whole thing. He knew he should have stayed and explained to Ellie about that timeline or any of the other timelines. But he left that to Sam and Tucker and that wasn't something he had wanted to burden them with. Especially with him not there as emotional support for themselves and Ellie's confusion on the topics.

Time always hurt his brain.

He waited till he had settled down in the open chair at the island next to Tucker, across from Sam, with his tea ready to go before he opened the can of worms.

"So I know that you're kinda still mad at me. And I'm sorry. For pushing against you guys about telling Ellie. And I'm sorry that I left you alone to do it. I'm also sorry that I was such a jerk and let my emotions get the better of me."

He waited for them to say anything, for Sam to open up her mind to him once again. But they both continued to sit there in silence, staring into their mugs. They glanced at each other once or twice and Danny knew he was either forgiven or about to deal with a new round of torture. It wasn't as weird as most people say it is when others supposedly 'speak silently' to one another, but it does get annoying when he's not also _in on_ the silent conversation with them.

"And?" Tucker asked taking a sip of his tea, both hands wrapped firmly around the warm cup.

Danny arched his brows and looked back and forth between his best friends. He settled for looking at Tucker. "And what?"

Sam huffed a little and shifted to cross her legs, not that he could see her legs very well but he saw her knee come up and rest over the other leg and the hint of her barefoot peeked out from the tables edge. Though it was an odd thought that popped into his head, he couldn't help but notice how pretty Sam's feet looked. There wasn't anything special about them but the way they looked made them seem overly beautiful especially with her deep purple nail polish.

"And, how about you either apologizing or acknowledging that you ran away again. You run away when it got to hard or to close and yeah you're back after blowing off some steam, but that wasn't the best situation to go and do that in." Sam's knuckles turned white from gripping her 'Baddest Witch in Town' mug of tea.

He sighed heavily and reached up to scratch the back of his neck. He knew he shouldn't have gone off like he had. Especially since Sam knew how often he'd run from specific things – though sometimes not running in the actual sense of the word. But he had needed to cool down otherwise he was going to say something he was going to regret, not only to Sam who he'd been arguing with but Ellie and Tucker. Sure, Sam and Tucker could have handled it, they were all good at handling each other, but Ellie wasn't.

He told Sam and Tucker exactly that. After which Sam dropped the wall on her side of the link and Danny could finally relax with the connection open again.

"It's not that we minded telling Ellie about the timelines, but dude are you not dealing with what happened? Because if that's what's going on maybe we should look into something else to help." Tucker looked over at him with so much concern in his eyes, Danny's resolve almost dropped.

"No, no I mean, I have dealt with it, but it's… it's kind of always a thought in the back of my mind." He shrugged and red rushed into his cheeks.

"About killing yourself." Tucker stated bluntly.

"No!" Danny quickly tried to reassure though he knew he couldn't exactly because it was something he was always dealing with. "I mean, like what if something like before would happen? I don't want to be even close to turning into _that_. It would be better. I'm not afraid of dying. I mean," a ghost of a chuckle left his lips, too melancholy to sound normal, "I'm already half dead. It wouldn't be much of a jump."

Sam took a deep breath through her nose and let it out slowly before speaking; Danny could tell he was about to get hit with something huge. She leaned forward on her elbows to get closer to Danny and look him in the eyes.

"I know that we play a game of what-ifs in our lives. I know that we'll never actually know for certain about our futures. I also know that Clockwork won't always be there to get us out of binds. We'll have to make our bed and lie in it. And I mean, I get it. I understand that you sometimes pull back when things get too hard or too close to something uncomfortable. _I get it._ _But_ , this has been something going on for a long time now. Almost a year has passed and I know that you and Jazz talked. _I kno_ w that we've talked. And we thought," she gestured between her and Tucker, "that you were dealing better with what happened."

"I _was_. I… I _am_." Danny jumped to reassure her. And he had thought about it. But as a last resort option if it came to Dan being a reality. He pressed that focus into her, positive that his idea was a good one.

Sam pursed her lips on the side, he could instantly tell and not because her mind was screaming it at him, but because he saw the aggravation on her face and in her eyes and the way her jaw set and the focus on keeping her breathing steady – that she did not see his idea as a "good" idea.

"Dude." Tucker turned his body to face Danny full on, "I know you've said it before, but that's not exactly the best way to go about that."

"That's why I said it was a last resort."

"But that's the thing," Sam grabbed his attention again, "I believe you, but then I also _don't_ believe you."

"But…"

"Me either."

Danny looked back and forth between both of his best friends as they glared him down. "But _seriously_ , I'm fine guys. Really, I just didn't want to discuss it tonight. I was tired and focused on Ellie, not me." They didn't let up on their silent glaring, so he consented to what they wanted, "Would it make you both happier if I brought it up to Jazz again?"

"Yes." Their voices were resound and final.

He closed his eyes and sighed before easing them open once more. "Okay. Okay, I'll bring it up."

Though Tucker would like to keep pushing on that subject, he knew Danny well enough that he knew it wouldn't do any good and decided to move on from that to the current 'crisis' in their life. "Soooo, you guys are parents."

Sam turned her sharp gaze from Danny to Tucker. "I swear to God, Tuck if you make a suggestive joke…"

He pointed his index finger at her. "Hey, it's not fair to inflict any kind of harm for me being me."

"Tucker." Danny groaned.

"You guys know I have trouble with tension." He rolled his eyes.

"We know." Sam answered, "you don't need to apologize for it, if that's what you're thinking."

"It's just a lot." Danny sighed.

"See!" Tucker tried to amend, "you two will already be great parents; you're already on the same page."

Danny and Sam smiled at him, though rolled their eyes at his comment. Both were thankful for Tucker's continued support and character to help carry them at the times they needed it the most.

Though the mood had risen for a slight moment it quickly fell back into its previous sourness. The information they had discovered weighed down on each of them heavily similar to a low heavy snow cloud preparing to break into a blizzard.

"I hate him." Sam growled, glaring holes once more into the counter in front of her tea. "I know we've always joked that he's messed up – especially after learning about him beginning to clone Danny. And I've known he always was at least a little messed up but now… _now_ he needs to be admitted to a psych ward. Or killed. Either or."

"We'd have to figure out a way to make sure he doesn't escape in the psych ward." Tucker huffed and rested his head in his hand. "Killing him would just be easier. And would be less hassle for everybody else too."

Danny's smooth and deep baritone cut through the kitchen making both Sam and Tucker eye him a bit warily when his eyes flashed red quickly, "Death is _too easy_. He doesn't deserve to die. There's a living breathing little girl upstairs. He needs to suffer with the consequences of messing with us and more importantly with innocent people and ghosts."

A pregnant pause permeated the air until Tucker spoke up, "What about keeping him with the Observants? They suck, but they're able to keep the high powered ghosts contained."

Sam shook her head. "No way. If we'd do that we need to figure out if the Ancients can put together his cell or something since they did so well with Pariah Darks. That is, if they still exist."

"But first we have to defeat him. And we've tried to get him to stop his actions before, but what we're talking about is to finally put an end to all of this. And we can do that, but we need to plan. We need to figure out the best and worst ways to take him down. We need to go over everything we can to make sure when we go after him it's the last time." Danny's eyes glowed fiercely, but a hint of determination colored his voice instead of the deep hatred, which calmed the tenseness in both Sam and Tucker.

"Maybe we can get Valerie to help, considering all that Vlad's done to her." Sam suggested.

"I can ask her." Tucker volunteered quickly.

Sam and Danny shared a quick knowing look at the tense atmosphere dissipate almost completely. "Why so _eager_ Tuck?" Danny smirked, eyes shifted to a humorous green.

"Someone's crush getting a little too out of hand?" Sam waggled her eyebrows at the same time.

"No!" Tucker cried indignantly. "No, I _don't_ … what? No." He shook his head.

Sam and Danny shared another knowing look. "He's in denial again." Danny said.

"Which is sad 'cause I'm pretty positive that she likes him."

"No she doesn't." Tucker huffed.

"Okay, whatever you say, Tuck." Sam chuckled.

"What, just 'cause you both are in a relationship now you're experts on who likes who?"

"Yes." They both answered cheekily.

"Ugh." Tucker groaned.

"Nope save that for Valerie." Danny smirked. Sam laughed loudly and Tucker reached over to hit Danny on the shoulder causing him to laugh and his eyes returned to their normal blue.

"Okay, that's it. I'm going to bed. Night nerds." He saluted before jumping off the stool type chair and made his way out of the kitchen.

"Aw, he's like us." Danny smirked at Sam.

"Except for the fact he's admitted out loud he has a crush. But then he goes back to denying it. I swear I'm gonna get whiplash from him and this." Sam got up from the table, grabbing hers and Danny's cups and placed them in the sink. "But I think he had the right idea to head on up to bed." In her acknowledgement, she let out a big yawn.

"I'll agree to that." Danny caught her yawn and stretched his arms high above his head.

They turned the kitchen lights off, walked up the stairs, gave the other a quick good-night kiss before heading off to their own rooms. Danny had just turned off his lights and crawled into bed, when Sam opened the door to his room asking if she could come in silently.

He sat up at once, "Of course. What's up?" he expected her to turn on the light, but instead she padded over to him in her bare feet and told him to scooch over before snuggling down in the bed with him.

"What's up?" He questioned again, wrapping on arm under Sam, causing her to move and rest her head on his chest, her arm came across his body and began trailing a finger over one of the smaller scars he had on his arm. She didn't answer his question though, so he let her raging thoughts flow through his mind and waited for her to bring up the topic she actually wanted to discuss.

Her mind kept going back to Ellie however and he knew where she was going in her thoughts, even though she never breached the topic.

"I'm sorry." He whispered, fingers twirling in the ends of her hair. He let that feeling spread through him and opened it up to her.

"You don't have anything to be sorry for in regards to this." She grumbled lowly.

"Maybe not," he was able to admit, "But if I had never let you and Tucker into this, so much of what just happened could have been avoided. So, I'm sorry that because of me, _yet again_ , you're suffering."

She shook her head, rubbing her face against his shirt. "When are you going to get it through your thick skull that you didn't drag us into this. We've made our _own_ choices about all of this. _And_ if none of this happened we wouldn't have had Ellie. She wouldn't even exist and I know you love her too much to not have her here."

Danny sighed, twirling his hand through her hair even more. "True. I just hate the way it happened. She should have been ours, you know? Not his. We should have had the chance to raise her. As a normal baby and not made through a test tube. To have the chance to grow up normally."

Sam rubbed calming circles on his arm as his tone grew harsher, she could sense his fatherly feelings through their link and it made her warm all over. "I'm glad that she has a good father figure in her life now. And I'm happy that grandma is stepping up as a great mother figure for her. I just… I know I can't be that for her. I don't think I'd be able to be the best for her." She admitted; her voice small.

She actually wanted to step up and fill that role. She was her biological mom. But she didn't know _how_ to be a mom. She wasn't ready for that role. Sure some people her age were able to step up to the plate, especially the teen moms and she applauded them for taking charge and being a _mom_ , being that role model for their child. But they had _months_ to prepare for that role. She had only found out a few hours ago. And her child – which was still super weird to think about – was a lot older. Was already in her teen years. She didn't have that time. And it terrified her.

"It's okay, Sam." He sent reassurances towards her through their link, calming her down. "I think she's just happy to have you in her life. Like for me, I kind of already see her as my daughter, you know? Like I already _feel_ like her dad. And it works for us. So, whatever you both need I think will work no matter what and Ellie's just happy with what you two share because you're still in her life."

Sam shifted on his chest, careful where she moved so as to not elbow him or push on him wrong, and moved to where she could look at his face, her eyes adjusted just enough to make out his feature. "You know, I'm still not quite happy with you from before. But I'm going to kiss you anyway."

She could hear his confusion loud and clear but surrendered to her lips deciding to focus on it later.

Their lips moved together slowly, easily. Almost too innocent in their actions, leaning into the other, moving slightly to get a better vantage point. However, after a minute or two of innocent kissing, Sam decided to deepen the kiss. She moved further over his body, accidentally kneeing him in the side.

"Sorry." She whispered against his lips after he let out a hiss at the hard contact. Then continued her ministrations, one hand now entwined with his, one on his chest and she was settled with her legs on either side of him, resting on his lower stomach.

' _It's okay_.' He responded through their link, sending reassurance and a flash of lust through them, Sam moaned at the feeling, touching his own mind with her thoughts of him and how the thought of him – his good heart and actions, made her want him. The thought of a future with him, no matter what, that made her want to kiss him senseless.

She could feel his happiness and smugness over making her feel that way, when he wasn't even trying. Danny untangled his hand from her hair and ran it slowly down her back, bunched the bottom of her shirt together in his hand, before letting go and disappearing underneath to rest it on her waist, a flush of heat rushed through her body, even though his fingers were chilled. However, he continued to be the perfect gentleman in their predicament. She definitely didn't want that; not right now. Didn't matter what they had argued about an hour or so ago. She wanted him to reach up and touch her.

Her demand was sharp through their minds and Danny groaned at her thought, he bumped back against her mind asking if she was sure, his hand squeezed her side tightly.

' _Yes.'_ She thought back, moving back a little, to move his hand up more herself and finally settling over him more so he knew what she was going for without having to think it. They both groaned as they came in contact with one another and Danny's hand moved father than she thought it would to her left breast, bunching up her T-shirt even further.

Sam sighed into the kiss, a tension finally being relieved in her body at the contact. She shifted, rubbing harsher against him, eliciting a moan and squeeze to her breast.

A flash of Sam naked and on top of Danny, riding him, crossed through their minds and Danny froze, breaking from the kiss. His eyes were wide in slight fear and cheeks turned deep red.

"Shit, sorry. That… that wasn't supposed to happen." He stumbled over his words.

Sam rolled her eyes, squeezed his hand and sent reassuring thoughts back to him. "It's okay. Remember we kinda knew this was coming. Besides," She shrugged and sat up over top of him, pulling his arm with her and therefore his whole body. "That means I can do this." She smirked and sent him an image of him taking her breast into his mouth while she grinded down on him.

He groaned, hips stuttering to move against her, both groaned at the friction their clothed sexes created.

"Gods, Sam." He growled taking her mouth once more. Sam encouragingly followed, moving her tongue with his and his left hand moved against her breast while the other unwound from her fingers and gripped her ass to help drive her deeper against him.

She laughed airily, elated and used her now free hands to pull his shirt over his head, marveling in the now free skin as he took to kissing her neck. She rocked down into his hips flashing her image through their link once more.

"Damn, Sam." He breathed against her neck, nipping it slightly, "You're trying to end me aren't you?"

She breathed a laugh through her nose and ran her finger tips between the sliver of space between them.

"Maybe." His body shuddered and pulled away from her neck, stilling his hands as well. She looked at him in concern. "Is… is that okay?" she had let herself use her body's desires to keep going but she hadn't thought about Danny not being okay with it. She had just assumed he would be.

The silence lasted too long, the link teetering open and closed.

"You know, I'm not going to last long like this." He finally whispered and Sam breathed easier.

She pulled a hand from his body to cup his cheek, looking him in the eyes, "I'm okay with this if you are."

"Oh, I am most definitely okay with it." He nodded. "I just… know it's kind of fast… you know considering, and I just wanted to make sure you were okay with, uh, well," he glanced away, face reddening even further. "you know."

"Orgasming?" She smiled devilishly. "I'm not a flower Danny."

He chuckled, gaze locking back on hers once more, pupils blown a little too wide and his hands moved to grip her waist tightly. "That I do know." He stole a quick kiss, moving fast enough to cause themselves to rub against the other roughly, relieving their building tension; a low moan broke from his lips and a deep sigh from Sam's. "I just wanted to make sure you were ready for this too." His lips whispered the words against hers.

Sam nodded, moved her hands from his body to the ends of her sleep shirt. "I am. Obviously not for, you know, actual sex, but this, this is perfect." She winked and yanked the material over her head and tossed the shirt to the side of the bed.

Danny's attention diverted from her eyes, down to her breasts then back up just as quickly.

"Well?" She asked, hands wrapped around his neck loosely, while his own dug into her hips and she knew she had him. "Are you going to touch them or are they going to sit there all alone?"

Danny decided the best course of action was to avoid talking and dropped his head, while moving a hand up to lift her right breast higher and wrapped his lips around her perky, rose colored nipple.

A low keen fell from Sam's mouth; his tongue twirled around the bud and Sam's fingers dug into the back of his shoulders, then ground down into him.

Another elicit moan echoed around the room. Danny unlatched his mouth from Sam's breast and pulled her down with him as he let himself fall into the bed once more. She used her knees to keep her balance, hands now stuck under Danny's cool body. She barely registered their new position when his mouth latched to the skin at the top of her other breast, biting into the soft tissue and dragged his hips up to rut against hers in quick succession.

"Ah, Danny!" She groaned, head dropping down, hitting his harshly but both ignored the quick shot of pain, her hair fell around her face. "Shit, that feels good." She moaned again, meeting him on is thrust up, once, twice. Again.

"Fu-uh-uck" Danny panted and his head pushed back into the pillows. Sam chuckled through her panting breath. "Don't stop. I think I'm close, Sam."

"Good," She growled and pulled him up for a deep kiss, teeth clashed and it was messy, barely registering as they rutted against the other.

He pulled away, keening loudly. "Sa-aa-am. Fuck."

His hips stuttered out of time with hers, before his body locked up, a deep long groan fell from his lips, but kept his eyes locked with Sam's. Being mentally linked, and feeling the rush of Danny's euphoria while cumming, helped in Sam's own orgasm pull through her quicker than normal; only a few seconds after his own and she pushed her lips back into his.

"Danny. _Holy shit_." She panted against him.

His eyes had fallen shut after hers had finished and she settled her full weight on him. His arms moved from her ass to wrap around her body and kissed her forehead. "That was great."

"Mhmm." Sam murmured, taking the opportunity to leave light, open mouthed kisses along his chest.

The silence pertained a few minutes longer, both now resting and Sam's hand looped with Danny's that had wrapped around near her shoulders.

"I love you."

"Love you, too." He responded tiredly. He knew he needed to get up and clean himself and change clothes, but it was nice to be able to cuddle together after what they did.

Sam had the same ideas and huffed in annoyance. "As much as I love this, I feel really gross. I'm going to take a quick shower."

"Okay." Danny amended.

"Do you have boxers I can borrow?"

"Mhmm. In my bag." He gestured to said bag on the floor by his closet door.

They laid there a moment longer, before Sam lifted her head to look at him in the eyes, but he kept them closed. "You have to let me go so I can get up."

"No." he grumbled, "You're too warm."

"If you don't clean yourself I'm not sleeping in here."

"Unless I make you." He smirked.

"Do you _really_ wanna try that out?"

Blue eyes snapped open to meet purple ones, "Uh… probably not." He released her.

Sam chuckled and patted his cheek. "That's what I thought."

Danny let her go and she rolled off the bed, moving towards his closet where he kept his bag, grabbing a pair of boxers, before heading off to the bathroom. Danny gave her, her privacy and when she was finished Danny took his turn. They kept themselves in silence, even in their minds, which was odd considering who they were but each time they looked at the other or lightly touched the other's mind, they blushed red but smiles rose to their lips.

When Danny had joined her back in bed Sam spoke up, rolling on her side to face him. Danny scooted closer till he was a hair-breath away from her.

"So, maybe we should talk about what we should limit?" She asked a bit hesitantly.

Danny nodded, feeling a bit nervous too. He realized – quite late actually – what just transpired between them and what it meant. He had been so caught up in Sam, and besides acknowledging that this was a huge step, it hadn't quite settled until Sam spoke up.

"Probably a good idea. So…" his cheeks were warm, but he held her gaze, he was not going to be some pre-teen child about talking about sex. Especially not with his _girlfriend_.

"So…" Sam echoed.

They weren't sure what really sparked it, but they both broke out into a fit of laughter. Loud and obnoxious, stiches forming in their sides and tears in the corner of their eyes. Their laughter continued on for a few minutes before subsiding; Danny left with a light, easy smile on his lips and Sam with calm features and bright eyes.

"You think we'll be good just winging it?" Sam questioned finally.

Danny shrugged as best as he could, "That's basically our life anyway."

Sam rolled her eyes and moved to lay partly on his cool body. "True. We'll just see what happens then. And if something comes up and we're not ready – either of us – we speak up." She turned to throw a glare at him, difficult from her position, but not impossible, "No matter what."

His smile pulled to the side, the barest hint of teeth peeking through, "Of course, Sammy."

"Hey, watch it with that."

"Oh, _Sammy-kins_ doesn't like…" he didn't get to finish his sentence as a pillow interrupted him.

A small pillow fight, and Tucker and Ellie coming in to figure out what was going on – having heard the yelling and screaming from their own rooms – everyone ended up bunking in Danny's bed. Sam and Danny knew they did need to sit down and have a good communication tryst but for now things were settled and okay.

* * *

 **October 18th, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **Rosie's**

 **8:40 p.m.**

"I just can't figure out how your cousin hates me already. _We just met_!"

Sam wanted to roll her eyes as Danny's laughter echoed in through their link. "She takes a bit. She's had a hard life; she doesn't let people in easily. It took a while for her to consider _me_ a friend."

"Well, yeah." He tapped his fingers against her back and glanced over to the group a bit away from them, dancing – or trying to – as a group of three. "But she seems to like Danny and Tucker really well, so don't get me started! She was buddy, buddy with them straight away."

Sam had to control her facial expressions so as to not let on how hilarious that statement was. That morning they – her and Ellie – had been caught coming into the house too late because her parents decided to use their ghost shield that they demanded to have since Sam's 'incident'. They easily covered up what really happened and Ellie's presence by Grandma Ida's quick thinking. What Sam found so funny about the situation was Ellie's well-hidden sarcasm behind a sweet smile, cute words and her parents' belief in child innocence. It was a sight to behold.

Her mother was immediately on top of the idea of welcoming Ellie into their home. She wanted to get a room set up as quickly as possible for her. Jeremy almost cried with happiness at having something for a connection with his cousin and talked about wanting to tell Ellie about all the crazy stuff that they had gotten into.

Of course what shocked Sam even more and was practically a laughable occurrence in itself was the fact that her parents – after finding out about 'Ellie's' past – asked her to take her out shopping to get a new wardrobe. With Charlie of course who had showed up around 11 am to get in some time with Sam before the big celebration dinner. It was the most fun Sam had had shopping since she bought her first dark outfit. And though Charlie had to tag along it wasn't half bad; they at least didn't have to carry all the bags.

"Look, I wouldn't be so torn up if she likes you or not…"

"But if she's your family, your second cousin… or, third? Second?

"Second."

"Then I'll have to see her at functions the rest of my life and if she hates me that much I don't know how I'm gonna face her."

"Like a man."

Laughter rang from the trio and Sam smiled wide when Danny cheered her on.

Charlie rolled his eyes, "Ha ha, real funny. But seriously, I don't know what I did to piss her off so much."

Sam sighed and stopped their dancing. "How about this: you get a quick drink and when you come back I'll have her dance with you and you can ask her yourself."

"Or I could keep dancing with you." He smiled suggestively, letting his tone drop a few octaves, his hand moved to her lower back. A growl sounded through her mind.

"No." her tone made it clear she wasn't interested and moved out of his hold, "You're very upset about this and I'd like to see it solved. So, go over and get a drink and then we'll get this all settled.

He sighed and closed his eyes for a second before reopening them. "Fine. But if this falls apart I blame you." He tried to play off his nerves.

Sam simply shrugged and began making her way over to the group, "Okay. No skin off my nose."

She didn't stay long enough to see or hear his response. She couldn't wait to see Ellie dance with him. It'd be a thing for T.V. however as she approached the crazy trio, Danny and Ellie quickly left, not even bothered enough to spare her a glance or an explanation through the link. Though Tucker's happy smile had turned into a devious smirk leading her to the conclusion something of the 'no good' nature was about to happen.

"You have to tell me what happens." Tucker said as soon as she was close enough.

"And what _is_ about to happen?" She inquired, both aloud and mentally.

' _You'll see.'_

"You'll see."

She groaned in annoyance and pulled Tucker into a dancing position. "You both suck."

He gasped, a scandalized look appeared on his features, "Who told you?! Look, I know it's a shock but me and Danny are very in love Sammy-kins. We we're waiting till we announced our engagement to tell you. Figured it would lessen the blow a bit."

She deliberately stepped on his toes during their spin, causing him to squeal. "See, that's why everyone thinks you and Danny are gay together."

"Jeez, you know that makes more sense. Though I guess the better response to us sucking would be: 'Your dick', but it's a bit too late now." His smile widen in triumph and Sam couldn't help but chuckle.

"Metaphorically."

"Uh, duh!" though he looked at her questioningly, "Unless you're hiding one I don't know about. Do I need to be worried about Danny? Does he really want it up…ow!" He rubbed his shoulder where she had hit him.

"Fucking hell, Tuck, we're in public."

He chuckled, "Never stopped us before."

"Yes, well I actually _like_ this place."

"Okay, okay. So, uh, Ellie's coming back out here. You think it's a good idea to leave them both alone?"

She glanced over to see a sulking Ellie making her way back over to them and Charlie and Danny looking as though they could burn holes in the walls. Though Danny probably could, but that wasn't the point.

"Probably not. But I'm gonna be entertained with whatever happens."

Danny smirked to himself at hearing Sam's words and thoughts. He sat there listening through Sam as Ellie told them how he'd made her leave even though she had wanted to stay and give Charlie a piece of her mind.

' _Tell her that if she'd done that, I'd never get a chance.'_

' _I was going to let her at him actually. But you kind of beat me to the punch.'_

' _I know.'_ He smirked and met Sam's eyes from across the room. She gestured to Tucker and Ellie to begin dancing so as to not draw Charlie to attention that she was looking at Danny.

' _Just don't get into a physical fight.'_ She grunted in annoyance, _'I honestly don't want this night to end with him in the hospital.'_

Danny could only laugh, and struggled to keep a straight face on the outside. _'Who me? Never.'_

"She sure is something isn't she." Charlie stated beside him pulling him away from Sam's thoughts.

"You have no idea." Danny could only respond with because even though Charlie was referring to the girl he saw on the dance floor, Danny was filled with images of the young woman he's grown to love through the years and everything she's stood for. Charlie barely knew how actually incredible she truly was. Danny was happy to feel her light embarrassment over his quick thoughts of her, and to see the light coating of pink on her cheeks, so different from her enthused and worn out blush.

Charlie let out a sigh and turned fully to face him, Danny only continued to watch his family out on the floor. "Look, I know that you two used to be a thing and all, so do you have any, like, tips on how to woo her? Each time I try she just shoots me down. I just can't figure out what she wants."

"She's already told you what she wants."

"Actually, I'm fairly certain she hasn't, otherwise I wouldn't be asking her _ex_ about it. Which reminds me actually, if you guys were a couple – even for a short time – why do you both still hang out with each other?"

Danny rolled his eyes and turned just enough to face Charlie. "First, all Sam wants is to be left alone to live the life _she_ wants. That's it. And if you could give her that then I'd gladly help if it was her decision; but it's not. So, you'll never be able to achieve that goal. That is unless you call off this whole arranged marriage. And _second_ , I'm still around because she's still my best friend. Nothing changes that."

"I've given her that, though." He huffed in annoyance. Danny couldn't believe how mindless he was being. "I told her we could be friends first and I'm letting her dictate our time together – how is that not what she wants? Speaking of which, don't you think your presence is hindering her ability to open up to me? I don't think it's smart for you to keep hanging around Sam."

"Excuse me?" He furrowed his brows.

"Well, considering you were her boyfriend at one point and if I remember correctly, it was only for a short time and very recently, I don't think Sam is able to move on correctly, especially after what you said how she just wants to 'live her own life', and let me let her do that – which I am. I think the reason she's so held back from me, is because you're still around."

Danny instantly felt his temper rise and though Sam was right there sending him calming thoughts and words when he spoke it was with a bite. "Like I said before, Sam is one of my best friends. That didn't just go away because of a break up. I'm around until Sam doesn't want me around. I'm not going to lie. _I love her_. And if she wants me to stay out of her life, then I'll go, but that time hasn't come. And considering you're trying to get me to leave, you're not following in the path Sam wants to lead – again, like I said. This is about what _she wants_. Not about what _I want_ and especially not what _you want_."

Charlie shifted and folded his fingers together atop the table. "You say you love her, but if you did as much as you've implied, then you should step aside and let her and I be happy together instead of forcing yourself on her presence. Since you both have been friends for so long, I can see how she wouldn't want to let that go, but you should be the one to separate yourself from her. Give her a chance to breathe and begin a real relationship with me."

"You're kidding me, right?"

"No," Charlie looked at him a bit confused, "of course not. I'm quite positive Sam will grow to love me, especially compared to you. I am the better choice after all."

"The _better_ choice."

"Of course." Charlie shifted to a more comfortable position, his posture straight and confident as he spoke his next words. "You are the son of two quite remarkable scientists and though that insinuates that you're of high intellect, there's the matter where the ' _crazy'_ comes out in your family since they use their great intellect for hunting ghosts. Also, you _are_ from a middle-class family. You wouldn't have the means of taking care of Sam who's grown up in this lavish life style and there's no going back from that. I know for a fact that she gives – hell her family gives – money to many charities and Sam is involved in those events, do you think if she were with you that she'd be able to continue those donations or heading those divisions. I'd be able to provide that for her. Provide her the life that suites her. The life she deserves."

The happy smirk that sat on his face told Danny that he thought he'd won their argument. Danny could only roll his eyes. If he honestly had any actual idea on who Sam really was.

"Right. Because you know exactly what's best for Sam and what she deserves."

"Well, it's not all…"

"Because I can tell you right now that Sam doesn't _need_ anyone to take care of her. She can hold her own just fine. Hell, she's so independent that it's hard to get nice things done sometimes for her because that's not how she sees them. So, no, Sam doesn't need anyone to promise things for her. What she _wants and needs_ is someone to stand with her."

"Of course I'll be there with her. But there's no need for her to worry about working if I'm able to take care of her. To give her everything."

"That kind of thinking is only going to put you further on her bad side. Which doesn't really matter to me, but if you want to get to know the real Sam, maybe you should show some decency and listen to her. _Actually listen_. And understand. Then maybe she could consider you a friend – which coming from Sam is a hard love to earn. But the way you talk, she'll never be yours. She's her own person and can make her own decisions, and can make her own decisions, but dude you're the one making this hard on yourself. Not me."

Charlie sighed loudly and shifted once more and Danny could see his hands tightening as his knuckles turned slightly white as they strained against the skin.

"Alright, I'm just going to lay it out here because clearly you're not understanding what I'm trying to get at. I want you to stop hanging around Sam. I mean clearly I can't help it when you guys are at school, but I don't want you interacting with her outside of that environment."

He glared Danny down to the best of his ability, which would have made Danny uncomfortable or bow down to his commands if he was any other person. But Charlie's glare didn't even compare to the Box Ghost's. So instead of being put in his place, Danny openly laughed.

"No. Who the hell do you think you are?"

"Excuse me? But I happen to be Sam's recent fucking boyfriend and future husband and as I hold that title I'm exercising the right to tell you to stop hanging around Sam."

It became harder to control himself as his temper rose and he shook his head at what was being said to him. "You're not Sam's anything. And there's no way in hell I'm going to just stop hanging out with my best friend because some prick who think he knows everything told me to."

Charlie glowered. "You seriously might want to rethink what you just said. You seriously don't wanna be on my bad side."

"Why not? You're already on mine." He flashed one of his threatening smiles towards him, loving the way Charlie flinched just in the slightest.

"You do know I have a lot of money and anything that might happen could easily be covered up?"

Danny smirked. "Are you threatening me?"

"Just stating obvious facts." His own answering smirk led Danny to believe he'd won over their argument.

"Damn, I guess you got me there."

Charlie's facial features instantly changed, "Great!" He clapped his hands and rubbed them together happily. "I knew you'd see reason. Now, I know it'll take some time…"

"Hold up," Danny held up a hand to stop Charlie in his ideas, "did you actually think I was for real?"

"Uh,"

"Because the answer is no. _I was being sarcastic_. I'm not going to be swayed by your itty-bitty baby threats. So, you have money. Big whoop. You don't scare me."

Charlie looked inquisitively at him. "You know, Sam's mentioned that your sister is in college at Washington University; an incredibly prestigious university. What would you say if I told you I'd pay for the rest of her schooling, including graduate school if you decided to heed what I say?"

Danny could only laugh once more.

Charlie changed his tactic, "Fine, then how about I just make your life a living hell?"

"You have no idea how much of a hell I'm already in. I could make you disappear like that." Though it was cliché Danny snapped his fingers in Charlie's face. "And no one would know what happened to you. No evidence, no nothing. Lost to the wind. I could actually _put_ you in hell if you'd like. Because believe me, I've seen it and you'd fit right in."

Danny barred his teeth and let his eyes flash, slow enough to be caught by Charlie but quick enough to make it seem as though it had never happened. Charlie's breath caught in his throat, and he cleared it quickly, trying to seem as though he wasn't frightened though, Danny felt the slight waves coming off of him and breathed it in. Sam's continuous presence in his head helped make sure he didn't take it too far, but by the gods did he want to take it and feed off it.

"Are you threatening me? Do you even understand how much money I have? _I could bury you_."

"It's a shit ton. That much is clear. And I'm only returning the favor. Like I said, you're clearly on my bad side, don't dig yourself an even deeper hole. So, what I'm trying to clarify is: if you touch Sam – you're gone. If you kiss her without her consent – you're dead. You try to use blackmail against any of my family or her to try to bow to your bidding – you disappear. You so much as look at her wrong. _You. Are. Dead_. Do I make myself clear?"

Danny was only met with silence and a stunned a fear filled face in front of him. "Good. If you don't mind I wasn't done dancing with my best friend." He rose from the table and left a still gaping Charlie at the table.

 **October 18th, 2014**

 **Saturday**

 **Rosie's**

 **9:05 p.m.**

* * *

Alright guys! How'd you like the chapter? I know it was a huge one, but I felt bad for not updating so I made sure to squeeze it full of stuff ;)

Let me know what you thought in the comments! Good or bad! But please only constructive criticism if it's bad :) This was also the first time i've ever posted or really written anything this steamy, so I hope it read well!

Not sure when I'll update again, but this story will never be abandoned! I'm super busy with work – practically working 60 hour weeks, so I'm pretty busy lol

I will be uploading this story to Ao3! I sort of have it on there already, but I'm going to take it down and start over, kind of? Like re-upload it. So if you follow this story on there, just be aware of what's going to happen.

Also, Voltron has completely sucked me in! I love Lance, he's been like my guiding beacon since the show came out! I just love him! So expect some Klance, Voltron fics to pop up on here and Ao3. I've kinda shifted to Ao3? I like it a lot more sometimes. But I'm still on here, so I'll be posting in both places. My name is the same there as it is here.

Thank you all for your continued support! Let me know what you think!

Okay, so what happened:

I've been feeling pretty depressed for I guess a little over a year and a half now. And it all kinda blew up in my face last fall (2016) when my grades slipped and I was put back on academic probation and my mom got super pissed off at me, and I finally admitted I really really needed help.

I'm now on medicine and have been since January for my depression and anxiety and I go to therapy twice a month. It didn't start like that, I mean I was going once a week for the longest time! But that's what I needed.

Anyway, some shit went down in April and I was doing way better in school and what not and I was feeling better – or so I thought – and my mom got on my case about my grades (even though I was doing really good!) and I couldn't stop crying and I thought it would just be better to no longer be here. Thankfully I have some REALLY REALLY amazing friends and I knew I needed to call them to get me to calm down. So I stayed with one of my friends that lives close to me for a while.

Things have gotten a lot better. Sometimes things get bad on some days – bad days happen – but I keep pushing and whenever I feel bad again I always call my friends. I have a great support system with them! I love them soooo much!

Thank you guys for always being here and reading my story! I'll do my best to get the next chapter out before mid-August!


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